Whirl Island Quest V2: unBEARably Sexy!
by LordoftheJynx
Summary: What happens when three hormone raging, pimple encased teenagers go on a Pokemon Journey to the Whirl Islands? Craziness ranging from a murderous Slowpoke to an evil Chansey to Greg, the boy who flirts on everything that moves! Come witness the insanity!
1. A Typical Beginning

**A/N - This is the first chapter, but things will be A LOT better later on. There is a lot of explaining here so please _bear_ with it because it is neccesary**

**Chapter One: A Typical Beginning**

A fresh sea breeze drifted throughout the many streets of Cianwood, bringing a beautiful day with it after many days of fierce gale and constant downpours. The sun had absorbed most of the remnants of the storm, leaving the path clear for the aspiring travelers in the seaside city. In the top right corner of one of the many identical white houses, a teenage adolescent boy slept uneasily, having the typical original trainer "pokemon master" dream.

Deep within the chambers of his sub-conscious, he found himself at least four hundred miles away in Meltokio, the home to the Whirl Island Pokemon League Tournament. Nearly a thousand adolescents from all corners of the mountainous Johto Region came to the Whirl Islands for a taste of pokemon training and only the greatest ones made it to the final tournament, one of them being Brian Arganaut...

"Congratulations Brian Arganaut! You have overcome all the pokemon trainers of your age group with only seven pokemon at your hands and conquered the Whirl Island Pokemon League!" praised a beautiful middle aged woman with shockingly dark brown eyes.

The immense crowd of over twenty thousand people leaped to their feet and applauded madly, stamping and cheering for the winner of the legendary tournament. The champion named Brian accepted his trophy with glee and thrusted it high above his head, making the seemingly unsurpassable din explode in sound.

He had the clear appearance of a teen in his rising puberty. His deeply tanned face was rife with pink pustules and pimples that blended easily with his shoulder length shaggy red hair, and he towered nearly five feet ten inches high with the build of a runner. With one eye, he noticed how the Champion of Johto, Patricia Gonzales, looked down adoringly at him. Brian couldn't help but crack a small grin as everything he worked finally drew to close with this moment…

"Oh puh-lease. This is the biggest load of bullcrap I have ever seen since the moon landing!"

Brian turned his head back and forth swiftly, looking for the source of the rather rude comment. The eighty year old tournament coordinator had dozed off several minutes before, and Patricia remained on the spot with an unnaturally gleeful grin still glued on her dull, emotionless face.

"Up here ya freaking moron! Yeesh, if you can't even find the source of a voice how on Earth did you manage to beat eight drug addicted gym leaders and another eight dumbass tournament trainers to get this far?"

To Brian's horror, a large gaping hole had appeared in the center of his golden trophy and was the one spouting out all the horrid phrases. "Yes! Took you long enough moron!"

"What the heck is going on? Oh God, did Greg stuff coke in my hotel room's Oust?" Brian mumbled, glaring down at the yapping trophy that he had dropped. The trophy, though only possessing a large mouth, emitted a powerful aura of freshness as it continued to bully Brian.

"Coke? Puh-lease! Greg still snorts _pepsi_ thinking that he is getting high off of the painful burning, sugary sensation in his nose. I can go years about that moron, but instead, let's focus on you! So, do tell, how does a complete idiotic, retarded, dumbass like yourself become the Champion of the Whirl Island Pokemon League? I suppose all of the MTV, hip hop music, and school vending machines are to blame…"

The crowd was still cheering blindly flailing their arms in the air and turning bright purple, serenely unaware of the mentally unstable winner conversing with his trophy. Brian's bushy eyebrows had shot off into his crimson hair and his mouth hung low, trying to comprehend the insane situation. "What the heck is going on! Trophies don't talk, I haven't even gone to the Whirl Islands yet… Wait, this a dream isn't this?"

"Obviously. Only a dream would be so farfetched as to let _you_ of all people be the winner of any pokemon related thing. I am your sub conscious, and I am here to end this rib cracking dream of yours. You've been thinking non stop about your little retarded trip to the Whirl Islands all last week, so of course, I ended up manifesting this little scene without even knowing it. However, as soon as I found out what was going on, I had to put an end to it! I suppose you might make it to the fifth gym, but you'll NEVER get farther! So why give you--"

"You know? I really hope that you and my self esteem never get together. The results would be really disastrous.."

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP! WHO GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO TALK? NEVER EVER INTERRUPT ME!"

Brian immediately stopped his response and glared down at the malicious trophy below. He never thought how horrible the factions of his brain could be. "Figures, only _you_ would submit to the orders of a partially animate object… Anyway, since this is such a typical start of a pokemon journey, I suppose you're going to get advice from a million people, but let me be the first. Only twenty percent of all pokemon trainers make it to a tournament, the other eighty percent crash and BURN. They burn like little babies after being doused in gasoline and thrown into a furnace! They burn like...a big fire! And you are going to be among the eighty percent because, unlike the other twenty, you do not have your own TV show or fan fiction! And that's because you're a complete moron! I do hope you have a rather enjoyi.."

Brian had stopped listening to the mindless droning of his sub conscious and instead focused on a strange shape in the sky. The skies were turning gray and thunder clapped violently as a large bright yellow object hurtled through the air and stopped at the massive silver rim of the stadium. With a bright flash of lightning, the great yellow object revealed itself as a giant floating banana.

"Oh no! The giant floating banana… that means that this whole thing is really just a dream…"

"NO! DON'T WAKE UP! I HAVE YET TO SHOW YOU THE TRUTH!"

The dream world was slowly slipping away from Brian's sight and blurred away as the face of his sheepish mother came to view. Soon, out of the corner of his eye all he could see was a massive black void with only the bright yellow banana in view, glowing strangely bright as it began to form into something else… It was definitely not a banana…

"WAKE UP!"

At last, the boy named Brian snapped back into the painful reality that was his life. He only bore a small resemblance to his dream version; he was barely five foot five while his hair was cropped neatly and acne had yet to sprout on his face. He tried to recall the strange dream he had just had, but it slipped away as quickly as he came. Brian was back in his dull white-walled room while his sheepish mother prodded him with her finger repeatedly, struggling to remain awake herself.

Jolene Arganaut was the mirror image of her son with straight pink hair that fell to her shoulders and a very similar sheepish attitude that she passed down to her son. She belonged to the family of pokemon nurses known as the "Nurse Joys", that were all unnaturally cheerful and serenely aware of the fact that they all looked exactly alike. However, she was one of the rare occurrences in the bloodline with her own individual personality.

While all of her cousins, sisters, and brother-in-law's-best-friends-second-cousins-twice-removed-great-aunt's always managed to keep a cheery positive attitude even if they were in the middle of a desert with a Growlithe chewing away at their leg and someone brutally stabbing them in the chest, Jolene was a pessimistic strong woman who did not take too kindly to idiots and complete morons.

"Ehh, give me another ten minutes Mom. I was up till three on X Box live…" Brian groaned as he sank back under his sheets.

"Do you realize that your little ferry is going to leave in ten minutes?"

"WHAT?" Brian immediately bolted up and turned to face his alarm clock which read '8:13 AM.' "Uhhh, I have another four hours! Today is the day I get out of this house and can go off with Jules and Greg to the Whirl Islands though, right?"

"Yes, so you better get this chapter going before the readers get bored with all the stale unoriginality!" Jolene exclaimed with her impatience growing.

"Chapter?"

"Chapter of your life! Come on Brian how dumb are you! You're the one who reads Tolstoy for fun!"

"But what about the whole reader thing?"

She ignored him and pointed to the bedroom door, with a furious demanding look on her face. Brian sighed and got out of his bed, grabbing the clothes left stashed on top of his drawer and headed to his bathroom at last. As soon as he slammed the door behind him, Jolene immediately slumped to the floor and fell asleep.

Before long, Brian found himself in the shower, musing over his future adventures as he began to return from his sleepy state. Nearly twelve years ago, a bill that was passing through the Grand Council of the Kanto-Johto land for many years finally came into action. The rules of underage pokemon training were completely rewritten, and the age of the handing out of pokemon licenses was raised from ten to eighteen! The basis of this great change was the fact of many injuries and pokemon negligence occurred from giving children that haven't even reached maturity the responsibilities that came with training pokemon.

Of course, there was great backlash and great support to this change. Famous and retired pokemon trainers were enraged over the government would change a tradition that lasted for thousands of years while soccer mothers were jubilant to know that their children would no longer receive bites from Rattata, bruises from Nidoran, and bloody decapitations from Scyther. After five years of intense debating and protesting, the leader of the Elite Four, Lance Sun, and the Grand Pokemon Champion, Patricia Gonzales, had managed to create an adolescent pokemon league in the Sevii Islands for thirteen year olds from Kanto and in the Whirl Islands for thirteen year olds from Johto.

This league would have eight gyms like the other pokemon leagues, two on each main island. However, they were not nearly as difficult as the main land gyms and were supposed to have their own individual twists. Once one gained eight badges, he or she would be able to progress to a final tournament which determined who trained their pokemon the best that year. Then they'd return home and keep the pokemon, or send it to the nearest professor until they turned eighteen.

In addition to the mini pokemon league, the true pokemon tournament of the Whirl Islands would be taking place this year. It was known as the "Whirl Cup", a water pokemon tournament held every three years in the main island, Red Rock Isle. Powerful water pokemon trainers from all corners of the globe would be coming to battle for the great title of "Water Pokemon Alpha Omega."

After he stopped thinking his long typical boring thoughts, he finally went downstairs after neatly tucking in his shirt and combing his thin red hair to one side. At the foot of the stairs, he was greeted with the sweet aroma of the saturated fat of bubbling bacon and the warm smile of his pokemon, Sunkern.

Back when Brian was but a wee little girly man, he found himself spending his spare time playing in the little patch of woods far back in Cianwood City. When he was eight, he came across a small, green striped yellow seed pokemon no bigger than soccer ball being attacked brutally by a small bird pokemon, Pidgey. Being the little indifferent child he was, Brian simply walked on, but after hearing the pitiful cries of the defenseless pokemon that was nearing death and looking straight into her shockingly adorable black eyes, all innocence fell, and the Pidgey soon paid with a flurry of stones.

It was typical clichéd start to a new friendship, Sunkern and Brian soon became inseparable after Brian brought the severely wounded plant pokemon to his mother's PokeCenter to be healed. Six years later, the two's friendship remained strong as ever and Sunkern defied the taunts of all RMTers by becoming an above average battler. Her hard shell proved to be a bit of a pain in her powerful tackle, and her special ability of absorbing enemies health was improved greatly after years of practice again Rattata.

"Hey Sunkern! Get a good nights sleep? Tis time for action buddy!" Brian muttered in a condescending voice, as if the pokemon was still a baby. Sunkern smiled sweetly as usual and leaped on to her trainer's right shoulder as they walked into the dining room to grab a bite of breakfast.

Inside the dining room was not only Brian's mother, Jolene, who was slowly eating a bowl of Total cereal, cringing every time she swallowed, but also his two greatest non-pokemon friends since Kindergarten, Greg and Julie. They were polar opposite fraternal twins who shared the same dirty blonde hair and large seafoam eyes.

"BRIAN! Ready go to the Whirl Islands?" Brian's female friend screeched as she leaped from her eggs and wrapped her arms tightly around the flustered boy, who weakly returned the hug.

Julie was a practical and sagacious teenage girl, who boasted being the only thirteen year old in Cianwood being under five feet after her brother, Greg's, growth spurt. Though she was an optimistic and cheerful girl the majority of the time, she was prone to violence, and despite her small stature, could easily knock out several Donphans in of her notorious tantrums.

"Ok! One-two-three LET HER GO BRIAN!" Greg roared angrily.

Julie must have inherited all the family shrewdness because Greg was one of the greatest loveable morons to ever walk the streets of Cianwood city. He wasn't too intelligent or strategic, but he was built pretty nicely since he spent most of his free time working out to look good for the ladies. Shortly after receiving his first stirrings, Greg soon became nefarious throughout all of town for being an extremely terrible flirt. Any pretty girl he sees, he would immediately jump in and begin complimenting her and then suggesting things leading to a nice kick where it hurts.

As soon as Brian released his hold of Julie (it was truly the other way around), Greg began to gorge on his plate of bacon once more with his right hand while he fixed his spiked blonde hair with the reflection on his spoon with his other hand. The two friends shrugged at each other at Greg's typical strange behavior and sat back in the table.

"Hi Brian, Greg and Julie got here a few minutes before, have some eggs and bac…err toast," Jolene said cheerfully, staring at Greg with a bit of anxiety as he took the last of the nearly twenty pieces of bacon for himself.

"Where's Slowpoke and Machop?" Brian asked the twins, who immediately responded by pointing to the room across from them. There in the kitchen were the two pokemon that belonged to his best friends: Machop and Slowpoke, eating their own meals.

Slowpoke was a hefty bright pink water bear pokemon with a two foot tail ending with a white band. Though he sounded like a pretty fierce and formidable opponent, he was actually one of the dumbest and worst pokemon to own. He had very little will to move his chunky legs and spent his spare time staring blankly into air for long periods, with his large mouth gaping wide open.

Many people wondered how Greg got stuck with such an incredibly incompetent pokemon that mirrored him so well. It all started when the poor idiotic boy was only seven years old and went with his family to the Whirl Islands to see the legendary Whirl Cup tournament. There he saw a beautiful water pokemon trainer by the name of "Misty" and immediately fell in love with her and wanted to be a water pokemon trainer just like her when he grew up. Julie claims that Greg's love for Misty is still alive and flaring. Ever since that Whirl Cup, Greg had become the world's biggest and worst flirt at the mere age of seven!

Unfortunately for him, his Great Aunt Matilda, who knew very little about pokemon, heard about little Gregory's dream of being a water pokemon trainer and bought him the second cheapest water pokemon she could find for his eight birthday, a newly born Slowpoke that was abandoned by its parents. From that day onwards, the two morons were stuck together, both sharing a strong dislike for each other. Mrs. and Mr. Carson refused to buy another pokemon and said that if Greg can't raise one of the hardest pokemon to raise properly, then he could never be a true pokemon trainer. Clearly, he wasn't a true pokemon tranier.

Machop was a much more competent pokemon that Slowpoke. Machop was a pokemon that sort of resembled a five year old kid—on steroids. He was completely grayish with a small tail and three fin like features on top of his head. He looked small and scrawny, but he could lift Greg in one hand and Julie on the other! The origins of Machop were similarly interesting, for he was actually originally intended for Brian.

Brian was born into the Arganauts, the biggest family of Fighting Pokemon trainers in all of Johto. His father, Marcus Arganaut, was a traveling fighting trainer and often gave lessons at dojos and schools about fighting pokemon. His younger brother Chuck had become the gym leader of the Cianwood City gym while his older brother Bruno received the highest honors and gained the second highest position in the Elite Four.

Being born into a family of fighting pokemon trainers, Brian was also expected to carry out the legacy, but instead shocked his entire family with the revelation that he would keep his Sunkern as his main pokemon, rather than the specially bred Machop his father had bought for him. Under Johto Pokemon Law 17-A, a child under the legal age of pokemon trainer could only possess one pokemon, though the family could still own a pokemon that would be intended for the child later on. However, Jolene refused to take in another pokemon in her house; it was already tough enough taking care of the three pokemon that already resided in her home, and Marcus couldn't take the Machop himself because then the pokemon would have no contact with Brian, defeating the purpose of Brian having his own fighting pokemon, so they ended up giving it to Brian's good friend Julie, who was the only one without a pokemon at the time.

"Brian? Brian? BRIAN STOP LOOKING AT THE POKEMON AND EAT ALREADY!" Jolene hollered, snapping her son back into reality.

"Huh? Oh sorry," Brian shrugged and started eating some eggs and toast himself while his Sunkern went to eat his good old sunlight with his pokemon friends. Everyone ate in silence for a few minute before Brian finally started a conversation . "I had the craziest dream this night. Where I--"

"Oh Brian honey, have you been having those dreams about the crazy clown chasing you on a giant Butterfree with a pair of sewing scissors again?" Jolene asked with a look of dear concern on her face as her son's face turned bright purple and the twin's faces looked up rather eagerly.

"Mom…please don't talk about that! No it was actually about--"

"Oh! I know! It was the Skitty gouging you eyes out! You should have heard him scream; I could have sworn I had a daughter!"

Greg and Julie grew steadily more and more purple as they struggled to hold in their laughter, even Sunkern was screwing her eyes tight and looked as if she was hiccupping. Brian decided to abandon the subject and went back to eating his toast, praying with all his might that his mother would not continue the subject of dreams. Jolene saw the look of deep embarrassment on her son's face and was determined to mend her mistake.

"Oh but it's not like Brian only has nightmares all night long! He has all sorts of dreams. You should have heard him in the nights after we went to Goldenrod City and saw the gym leader Whitney!" Jolene cried with glee, looking intently at the twins. Brian dropped his egg filled spoon immediately and began to twitch madly. The two twins looked up eagerly, knowing they struck gold at their best friend's expense.

"Oh really Mrs. Thomas? What exactly did my good buddy Brian say about that red head gym leader?" Greg asked the clueless mother, while secretly giving the magenta-faced Brian a "you go girl!" eye.

"Hmm, I'm not exactly sure what all he was saying, but I remember him going 'I love you Whitney!' and then 'Your so hawt!' and then for some reason, he started mooing…"

By the time Mrs. Arganaut started imitating Brian's alleged mooing, Greg and Julie could no longer hold in their amusement and let out a huge myrrh of laughter that brought tears to their eyes and shook the kitchen table rather violently as they struck it fiercely with their fists. Jolene gave her son a big thumbs up, still under the disillusion she redeemed herself, while he slowly banged his head against the kitchen table, in hopes that his brain would come loose, freeing him from the hell that was his mother's love.

After finishing the ruckus that was breakfast, the trio gathered their pokemon and was ready to leave the house and go and visit the gym leader Chuck, who supposedly had a surprise for their journey. Unfortunately, the two greatest idiots in the group ran across some problems trying to leave the house.

"COME ON YOU STUPID LUMMOX GET YOUR FAT BEHIND OFF THE FLOOR AND GET A MOVE ON IT!" Greg screeched as he repeatedly kicked the bear pokemon in its side, trying to get the dimwitted pokemon out of his usual nine o clock daydream. "AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN EAT YOUR REMORAID AND BITS! GAAH YOU STUPID POKEMON!" Greg grabbed a handful of the food in Slowpoke's bowl and shoved it inside the water pokemon's wide gaping mouth before storming out in a fit of rage.

When Greg was out of sight, and Brian, Julie, and their pokemon looked at each other awkwardly, Slowpoke finally began slowly munching his food and started to drag his legs slowly toward the door. There was positively no way to understand what went on in that eccentric pokemon's large head. At last, the three had finally escaped the house (after much hugs and kisses to Brian from his mother) and were on their way to Brian's uncle, Chuck's, gym.

**PART TWO**

As soon as the trio was about three blocks away from Brian's home, Greg immediately stopped Brian by his shoulder and pulled his neatly tucked shirt out of his pants and messed up his neatly combed hair to give him a somewhat rugged look. "BRIAN! STOP LOOKING LIKE SUCH A FREAKING NERD! How are you going to get them hos looking like some mini lawyer?"

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING A HO?" Julie screeched, grasping Greg tightly by the throat and pinning him up against the nearest house, her seafoam eyes vibrating madly. Brian stared at the two uncomfortably while gently trying to fix his hair. The same argument had happened between the three for a while on where Brian should fit in the social spectrum.

Greg fit with the "stupid pretty boy" group, Julie fit with the "feminist intelligent female" group, but Brian didn't really fit anywhere! He was definitely a smart one and a black belt in karate (though he didn't want to raise fighting pokemon, that didn't mean he wasn't a formidable opponent). From his very origins in middle school, Brian had never really gone to any groups and just stuck with having Greg and Julie and best friends and several other friends from all different parts of the social spectrum. Basically, he managed to retain his Elementary mindset of open friendship, setting him apart from thousands of other teenagers all over Johto.

"Brian, you're perfectly fine the way you are. If you ever be like Greg, I promise that I will kill you. Slowly and painfully," Julie smiled cheerfully, after throwing Greg down on the pavement. Brian stuttered, at loss for words when Greg struggled to stand and began speaking.

"Oh puh-lease, are you trying to make Brian a girly man whose going to grow up to be a 'stapistics analist' who never got a woman and has to end up getting a mail-order wife from Bolivia! Hmm, then again, some Bolivian women are pretty hot…"

"SHUT UP GREG! Brian, take it from a woman, plenty of girls are a lot more interested than you than my dearest brother! In fact, I remember some girls even said they had a bit of a crush on you!" Julie declared with a rather excessive broad grin. At her last statement, Greg's mouth fell down, and Brian's eyes grew rather large.

"Really? Who liked me?" Brian asked curiously, attempting with all his might to hide his glee. At this question, Julie's eyes began to widen, and she began to flush a rather light shade of pink as she slowly twisted the ends of her long blonde hair trying to think of a quick response.

"Errm, it was that one Ma..no she…well…actually…that Hoenn…you know what? We really need to go to the Cianwood Gym! It's already 9:30 and who knows how long Chuck wants us? Let's go off to our adventures!" Julie gave her legendary bright smile and skipped on ahead while the guys just shrugged at each other.

"Sunkern Sunkern (Has it occurred to you that humans can be very strange)?" the seed pokemon asked Julie's Machop in utter confusion at the events that just followed.

"Machop Chop Chop (That's because they're brainses aren't nearly as developed as us pokemon'ses brainses)!"the fighting pokemon said in response.

"Slowpoke poke poke (I like tater tots)…"

The rest of the fifteen minute walk to the gym was done in silence, the situation that was started by Greg left them all feeling awkward and Greg wondering what it would be like to have a Bolivian wife…

Finally, they arrived at the most famous building of Cianwood City, the Cianwood Fighting Gym. On the outside, it was a great clash of Japanese architecture and beautifully positioned arches forming a great one story building that released the powerful aura of mysticism. Several beautiful wood chimes hung from the door archway and swayed softly in the breeze, and situated above it was a wooden carving of a giant flaming fist.

When they entered inside, the mystic feel had not gone away quite yet. The wooden ceiling arched high above, looking so fragile yet intricate as if a single ember would make the whole thing burst into flames and cause the whole gym to collapse. The floor was smooth and shiny, except for the rocky battlefield in the very center. The light ninja battle tune that came from the hidden speakers was easily heard as the gym was nearly empty, except for the motherly figure that was trekking from across the field to meet the children.

Her name was Sarah Arganaut, the wife of the gym leader Chuck Arganaut, and she was the world's most caring woman, always baking the children her famous cookies and always assisting the community and volunteering since she didn't have a job. She was a very beautiful woman with a cascade of straight black hair and sparkling blue eyes, and her beauty was only intensified in the kimonos she fashioned.

"Hello children…or should I say teenagers. Ho ho…that was funny, I called you guys teenagers since you guys are now going to…errm, anyway, Chuck is waiting in his office for you! If you look closely, you'll see that Atkins diet I ordered for him is finally working!" Sarah told the kids, pointing to a room crammed all the way back in the corner.

"Do you have any cookies Mrs. Arga--AH AH AH! NEVER MIND!" Greg started before Julie started to twist his ear painfully dragging him off to Chuck's office. Sarah didn't know what to say and just went off to kitchen while the children finally went to see Chuck.

Unlike most offices which consisted of a chairs, a big desk, and a few plants and paintings, Chuck's office was full of different weight lifting stations from bench presses to squats to treadmills, even though there were two other weight lifting rooms in the gym. Machop looked nervously at the punching bag, getting the strong urge to practice his punching skills. In the very corner, there was a small work desk with a computer and phone attached. Chuck was at the desk, wearing his unusually thick glasses and filling out complicated looking forms rather quickly. He looked up at the adolescents who immediately jumped back at the bespectacled Chuck.

"Hello Mr. Arganaut! Can Machop use the punching bag please? He didn't get his normal five days of training at your gym this week," Julie asked, pointing at her jittery pokemon.

"Oh hey kids! Call me Chuck Julie! And of course Machop can use my weights. Errm, you three have a seat…I'm going to get something!" Chuck mumbled quickly as he tore off his glasses and stormed out of the room. Machop immediately went off to the punching bag and began assaulting it. The trio looked around for something they could use as a seat since there was no room for chairs. They ended up sharing one of the bench press benches before Chuck returned carrying a small box with him.

Chuck was like a second father to Brian since his own father was constantly away on work and always taught him important lessons and even was his sensei when he was training in Karate. He was a very powerful but clumsy man with a prominent split moustache. Though his arms and legs were built powerfully and he had the built of a wrestler, Chuck was quite the chubby one, though his diet was having some effect.

He placed the box down and began to rummage through the box before pulling out a tiny electronic device only the size of a cellular phone. It was bright red and had a clear screen in the center with several buttons below it and a tiny stylus to go with it. Chuck pressed a tiny, barely visible button on the back of the strange device, and a voice suddenly boomed out of it.

_"HELLO USER. I AM THE I-POKEDEX MINI! I SERVE AS AN ELECTRONIC POKEMON ENCYLOPEDIA THAT WILL GIVE YOU ALL SORTS OF INFORMATION ABOUT A POKEMON! PLEASE STATE YOUR NAME AND GENDER!" _

The trio raised their eyebrows at the abilities of this tiny device and didn't know what to say. Suddenly, Chuck ran toward them and shoved the "I-Poke" in front of Greg's mouth. Greg did not know what to do and leaned back, as if the machine was a slimy Weedle. "Psst…state your name and gender!" Chuck hissed from behind the I-Poke Mini.

"Umm Greg Carson, Female…NO MALE MALE MALE!"

_"HELLO MRS. UMMGREG CARSON! PLEASE GO TO MY SETTINGS SCREEN TO CHANGE MY SETTINGS." _

"This is the newest innovation in the Pokedex line! Last year we had the I-Poke which could fit in your smallest pockets and had nearly five hundred skins and could hold information on 400 pokemon! But this year, we have the I-Poke _Mini_ which can fit neatly in the lining of your underwear and has a thousand skins and can hold information on 5000 pokemon!" Chuck announced in a strangely monotone and rehearsed voice.

"Umm Uncle Chuck, who would want to keep their Poke in their undergarments?" Brian asked with a look of deep confusion at the I-Poke Mini.

"And last time I checked, Chuck, there was only three hundred eighty pokemon, not five thousand?" Julie muttered, holding back her annoyance at the idiocy of this so called technology innovation.

"That thing is so easy to lose! I'd end up putting it in my laundry!" Greg cried.

"QUITE! THIS IS A TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION!" Chuck screamed, taking everyone by surprise. His crimson face soon returned to normal, looking rather embarrassed for his previous outburst. "Err, so anyway the I-Poke Mini was presented at the Spring Gym Leader conference, and I said I knew two very responsible adolescents who were about to go to the Pokemon League on the Whirl Islands and a third adolescent who could receive a prototype to see if the more slower children could easily operate the device. So, instead of that obsolete I-Poke, you three shall receive the I-Poke Mini as prototype testers! Let me demonstrate on your Machop, Julie!"

Chuck pointed Urrgreg's I-Poke at Machop and pressed a red button, causing the tiny bulb at the tip of the device to glow brightly and pause for a few seconds.

_"MACHOP-THE FIGHTING POKEMON. THIS POKEMON IS ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL PREVOLVED POKEMON AND IS CAPABLE OF LIFTING ONE HUNDRED TIMES THEIR OWN WEIGHT. THIS ONE IS CURRENTLY AT LEVEL 15 AND KNOWS LOW KICK, KARATE CHOP, FOCUS ENERGY, AND LEER!" _

"Great! One down….four thousand nine hundred and ninety nine more pokemon to go!" Greg exclaimed sarcastically, causing Chuck to scowl and point the I-Poke at Slowpoke as well.

_"SLOWPOKE- THE WATER/PSYCHIC POKEMON. THIS POKEMON IS ONE OF THE MOST DIMWITTED POKEMON AND EXTREMELY INRESPONSIVE. IT TAKES A VERY SKILLED TRAINER TO BRING OUT ITS HIDDEN POWER. THIS ONE IS CURRENTLY AT LEVEL 5 AND KNOWS WATER GUN, CURSE, AND TACKLE!"_

Brian and Julie immediately guffawed at Greg's humiliation before Chuck pointed the I-Poke at Sunkern.

_"SUNKERN- THE GRASS POKEMON. THIS POKEMON IS VERY FRAGILE AND EASILY DEFEATED. ITS PRIMARY WAY OF ATTACKING ITS OPPONENT IS BY ABSORBING ITS ENERGY. THIS ONE IS CURRENTLY AT LEVEL 16 AND KNOWS ABSORB, MEGA DRAIN, AND GROWTH!"_

"Pssh, very fragile and easily developed? Not my Sunkern! We'll prove that stupid I-Poke wrong, right Sunkern?" Brian asked his grass pokemon, giving her a hard slap in the back. Sunkern was immediately shot into the air from the bench, struck Chuck's hard desk rather fiercely, and slid down to lay face down in the dirty carpeted floor.

"Sunkern kern kern (Why didn't you just get a shiny Larvitar like everybody else)…"

"I've got cookies! And Miltank jerky for my Atkins man!" Sarah exclaimed as she walked right in the room carrying a plate of food, before they people in the room could commence to laugh at Sunkern and Brian. The trio was more than happy to take the cookies while Chuck politely refused the Miltank jerkey, not being able to take another bite of meat. "I see Chuck has given you the I-Pokes! Are they, as you kids say, _totally  
rad_!"

The three immediately stopped half way through their cookies and looked up at the horrifying site of a middle age woman saying an extinct teenage phrase. After several seconds of silence, Greg was the one who finally broke the silence. "Dude, that like totally died out around the Middle Ages, fo'shizzle!"

"Tell me Mrs. Sarah, can you name five thousand pokemon?" Brian asked the totally rad woman. Julie nodded vigorously in agreement while Chuck let out a groan of exasperation.

"Umm, I can do this! I got an A- in Pokemon Studies! Umm Caterpie, Sunkern, uuhhh Poliwrath, ummm Wobbuffet, Jynx…." Sarah began to recite, with her eyes screwed tight in concentration as she attempted to recall the names of all five thousand pokemon. Brian and Julie looked at each other nervously; they didn't think she'd actually try.

She continued on naming random pokemon names for another five minutes before Chuck whispered to them quietly that it was best they went off and wished them good luck on their pokemon journey, giving them all individual hugs and handing them their I-pokes, while Sarah still managed to recite random pokemon names, completely indifferent to what happened around her.

As soon as they got out of the office, they broke out in a sprint to get away from the two very strange adults and there magical technology.

"That was weird… But hey, I suppose it's not bad to get these I-Poke Minis for free. Normally, you have to pay a hundred dollars for one!" Julie commented as she looked at her new I-Poke Mini and showed it to her Machop as well.

"Hmmph, I'll show that stupid voice! I am an extremely skilled trainer, and my Slowpoke will be the most powerful thing in the history of the world! Even more powerful than that Misty's Corsola…oh Misty how much I'd love for you too…errm give me advice on water pokemon training!" Greg rambled on, before being rudely snapped back to reality by the greedy looks on his best friend and sister's face at the hint that he truly still did love Misty.

"Hey Julie, Greg and I definitely know what we're going to do. Greg is going to compete in the Whirl Cup, if he even manages to catch another water pokemon, and I'm going to get those badges and compete in the end of the year tournament. You decided yet?" Brian asked.

Julie did not answer immediately, instead she paused for a moment and was deep in thought as reflected by the strange glimmer in her seafoam eyes as she tied her long hair in a ponytail. "Well, I do love an occasional battle but don't want to spend my entire year just training my pokemon for battle! Maybe I'll go and see what pokemon occupation I want to do when I grow up…and perhaps train my pokemon to beat that awful Sally!"

She made a rather ugly face at the word Sally, for Sally was one of the Pecunia Triplets. The Pecunians were a very rich family with a giant mansion in the far end of Cianwood as well as a sea cabin. They had a set of triplets containing three snobby daughters: Sally, Grace, and Jean. They always wore fancy dresses and bragged about their surplus of material things in school. Sally and Julie were horrible enemies ever since Kindergarten, but that story is for another time…

Brian and Greg chuckled at her last statement and the three decided to head back to their own homes, get their stuff, and meet back up in the Cianwood Port to wait for the Ferry to come at last. After a few blocks, they parted ways. Brian looked around him and for the first time in a while he appreciated the beauty of his city that he would be separated from for an entire year.

Over to the far right was a giant beach that stretched all through out the shore with many ferries, fisherman, swimmers, and just people having fun at the beach. At the other side was a large city with beautiful white houses and a pokemon center. The entire city consisted of fifty streets and over one thousand houses. The sun always shined brightly overhead the city and the air was always salty with the taste of the Johto Sea; it truly was a spectacular place, but Brian anticipated even more the beautiful conditions and streets of the Whirl Islands that he waited nearly thirteen years for.

Upon reaching his home, he saw his mother waiting patiently on the porch with Brian's packed travel pack hanging limply at her side. Besides her was a large praying mantis pokemon with large scythes for arms, a Scyther known as "Slissy". Jolene's normally peachy and bright face was wet with the stains of tears. Because Marcus Arganaut was always gone in work, her son was all she had and now he would be gone too. They looked at each other silently for a few minutes before Jolene finally cracked and leaped to wrap her arms around her son and planting fierce kisses on his cheeks.

"Oh Son! I'm going to miss you so much! Even though it is only a year, I'm still going to miss you so badly! I have your bag packed with all necessary things you need, including ten sticks of Old Spice deodorant!"

"You got me Old Spice deodorant mother? Wow Mom, you really do care about me!" Brian interrupted.

"Yes, Old Spice deodorant is made with a powerful substance that has the force to eliminate and prevent powerful odors of the sweat gland; even a Muk will smell good with a nice application of Old Spice!"

"So, if a mother truly cares about her Son, she will buy him Old Spice deodorant?"

"Yes, because those cheap mothers who buy the one dollar store brand crap are also the tramps with seven crack addicted babies you see living in trailers in Alabama! So, unless you want to be a trashy woman living in a trailer with seven crack addicted babies, hurry up to your nearest drug store and pick up as many Old Spice deodorants as you can for the low price of 3.99!" Jolene exclaimed, pulling a stick of Old Spice deodorant from her pocket turning around and giving a strangely wide grin to the air in front of her.

"Scyther Scyther Scythe (What the heck was that! Humans…)" Slissy commented as she watched the two humans acting very strangely from her hedge cutting.

"Anyways, if you need anything, be sure to call me! Remember PokeCenters offer free meals, so don't be a Pecunia and save your money! Oh, Sunkern you be a good plant and protect Brian," Mrs. Thomas mumbled with tears pouring down her cheeks.

"Mom…"

"OH SON!"

She gave Brian a rib cracking hug and splattered his face with kisses again as he put on his pack. Sunkern was screwing her eyes tightly, attempting for the one too manieth time to control her laughter.

"I'll miss you too Mom, but can you please loosen your grip," Brian struggled to say. Slissy, who was about as close to Brian as Sunkern, turned away and crossed her scythes with a few tears growing in her eyes. "Oh Slissy! You know I'll miss you the most!"

The bug pokemon turned back smiling and raised her scythes in preparation for an enormous hug. "AHHHHHH!" Brian screamed as he ran as fast as he could away from the sharp scythes and toward the port nearly toppling Sunkern off of his shoulder.

When he finally reached the port, he found Greg and Julie already waiting there along with about fifty other adolescents and their pokemon waiting impatiently for the ferry to come anytime soon, even though they still had about another hour and a half. As he walked toward his best friends, many people gave him funny looks since he had lipstick plastered all over his cheeks and was panting rather heavily. The trio sat down on the rocks and played several games of Gin Rummy with a few other friends before the ferry finally approached the port.

As the ship finally drew closer, the crowd murmured and gasped in great interest at the ferry. It was nothing like a ferry; it was more like a cruise ship! Within an hour, the ship anchored at the dock and the door opened as a small man with glasses holding a piece of paper came out along with several sailors. They explained the rules and regulations of the expected ship behavior (which even Julie didn't listen to). More people were focused on the majesty that was the S.S. Mantine! It was nowhere the size of a regular ship but was still rather large and shared the same volume as two houses. The white and black paint shined brightly in the sun and many bulbs decorated the intricate railing that traveled around the perimeter of the boat. They saw a few windows scattered sporadically around the side of the boat and couldn't wait to see what lay inside the majestic boat.

The small man with the piece of paper began to speak himself. "Alright, get settled down. This boat ride is expected to last four hours on route to Olivine City and then another four hours to the Whirl Islands from there. I will name the names of those who registered to go on this journey in alphabetical order, and when your name is called out, I need you to come to me, show me your ID, and then you may come aboard the S.S. Mantine! Alright….Reddy Alibaster, Brian Arganaut, Lewis Badeyes, Adam Britannia, Greg Carson, Julie Carson, Billy Coors…"

Brian and the twins pulled out their Pokemon IDs, gave each other big grins, and walked toward the ship to a new land, to a new adventure, to a new period in their lives that they would never forget as long as they lived.

_...This chapter was brought to you by Old Spice Deodorant and Apple Computers. Remember, if you don't want to be outstyled crack addicted Alabama trailer trash, then use our products!_


	2. All Aboard the SS Mantine! Part One!

**Chapter Two: All Aboard the S.S. Mantine! Part One**

Nearly twenty minutes after the children finally boarded the ship, the _S.S. Mantine_ had finally anchored out of the Cianwood Port and began to turn away from the seaside city to head towards Olivine City. Most of the insensitive little brutes had made it their mission to head to the intestines of the ship as soon as possible and see what laid inside, but Brian, the twins, and several other teenagers were nice and sentimental enough to give their beautiful city one last gaze as the horizon slowly devoured and chewed it. Somewhere in the city, Jolene and many other overprotective mothers were bawling into the sheets of their beds, not being able to see their babies for quite some time. After about another thirty minutes, Cianwood was fully engulfed by the treacherous sea, and the trio turned to officially begin their Whirl Island Quest at last.

Brian gave one final smirk before turning to face the twins and his pokemon. "Wow, so this is really it guys. We're on our own. We're on a pokemon journey! I can't believe how amazing the thought of…"

"Brian, do me a favor and please shut up. Nobody likes an overly sensitive little sissy boy! Right Slowpoke?" Greg groaned, looking to his hefty bear pokemon for support.

The three pokemon were sitting on the hardwood polished deck together. Sunkern and Machop prattling away in their own little language about the two things that mattered most to a pokemon: shiny things and _The O.C._. While the two obedient and well respected pokemon were in a deep intellectual discussion about the joys of aluminum paper, Slowpoke gazed cravingly at a gray shellfish pokemon, whom he lusted after for ages. Upon hearing Greg's question, Slowpoke turned to his trainer, temporarily out of his usual day dreaming state.

"Slow…. Slow… (Who are you again)?"

"Oh shut up you big lummox! God, I can't wait to capture another water pokemon! Then, I'll finally be able to toss you off the side of a boat and tell people you couldn't bear living with your fat self! Look at Sunkern and Machop! They are already deep in discussion like good obedient slaves; whereas you are just lusting over that Melissa's Shellder!" Greg shouted to his pokemon. Slowpoke said nothing, but rather quietly blinked back at him, contemplating on how much his gelled up blonde hair looked like a delicious omelet.

Having an extremely loud and obnoxious voice, Greg's whining was heard on the entire deck. The tall girl named Melissa looked back to see Slowpoke slowly licking his lips as he stared at the Shellder's backside, and immediately snatched her pokemon away, marching down into the bowels of the ship. Sunkern and Machop glared at the rude pokemon trainer with disgust, starting a new discussion on which of their attacks could probably off him. Slowpoke's eyes began to tear up as the love of his life slowly went away, all because of his stupid trainer.

"Greg, sometimes I really wish you would just shut your mouth for an entire day. Is it really that hard?" Julie muttered to herself.

"And I sure wish you would stop being such a little PMS infested bi…."

"OK GUYS! Who wants to go downstairs? I'm sure that there are lots of fun and _dandy_ things do to in there! What do you guys say? Eh? Eh?" Brian yelled out nervously, before Greg could finish his rather insulting remark.

The tension between Greg and Julie reached an all time zenith, more frigid than an Articuno breath on a cold, blizzard stabbed day. They quietly stared at each other with their pearly seafoam eyes not budging a single millimeter. Greg started to clench his teeth with all his might while Julie's eyes began to shake violently. When the moment seemed like it would never come, Julie finally blinked. The twins looked at each other for another few seconds and started to laugh as Greg finally blinked as well.

"Damn it, Greg! Even if you are an idiot, you can still beat me in a good old fashioned blinking contest!" Julie moaned ruefully, giving her brother a light punch in the arm.

"Oh, don't worry little sis, you're still good at other things! Like being an ice cold bi…"

"Shut up Mr. Imgoingtoenduponthestreetswithnojobandafourhundred poundgirlfriendwhoIhavetospoonfeedbecauseshestooda mnfattogetuponherown!" Julie retaliated giving her brother a harder punch in the stomach. The two playfully fought with each other for a few minutes before landing on the deck and laughing their heads off. Brian stared at the twins in utter confusion. They may have been the worst enemies and polar opposites, but they always remembered the fact they were twins and managed to be closer than a obese adolescent to his chocolate cake.

"Wow guys, one minute cussing each other out, next minute, laughing with each other! I will never be able to understand you two... Anyway, want to head downstairs?" Brian asked shaking his head and chuckling at his two best friends.

"Yeah, let's get out of this place. People are already beginning to give us funny looks... Come along now Machop!" Julie replied calling her fighting pokemon forward while Sunkern hopped onto Brian's shoulder. Greg, without surprise, had major problems trying to get Slowpoke to follow him.

"GET UP YOU FAT LARD! COME ON! MOVE RIGHT NOW!" Greg pleaded, taking a handful of Slowpoke's back fat in a vain attempt to pull him away from the ship's railing, only to find the blubber slipping from his hands each time. Cursing under his breath, Greg moved his hands to Slowpokes tiny tail and began to tug as forcefully as he could. With the poor luck of a comic relief character, out of all the things Greg could have done to Slowpoke, he chose the most fatal one.

For the first time in many years, Slowpoke finally made a reaction that didn't involve gazing blankly with his mouth hanging wide open. Slowpoke slowly turned to face Greg with a face of utmost fury. His large eyes were narrowed in dislike, and his normally wide and gaping mouth had been reduced to a thin, annoyed line. After he glared at his trainer for a few seconds, he took in a big breath and opened his wide mouth as vastly as he could. Surprising everyone who watched, a thick pillar of foaming water fired out of the "fat lard's" mouth and struck Greg squarely in the chest, drenching his clothes and causing him to crash into the ship's side railings.

Julie and Brian looked at Slowpoke with utmost amazement, more surprised that he was able to use an attack rather than the fact that he hurt Greg of course. Many other onlookers in the deck turned to face Greg and Slowpoke, ready for a few seconds of entertainment. Machop and Slowpoke exchanged grimace from their trainer's sides. They knew Slowpoke the best and have seen the results of his true power a few times before.

Greg was knocked out temporarily by the sheer force of the Water Gun attack and struggled to get up again. Once he finally did, he shook his clothes fiercely like a dog, expelling a large amount of water onto the deck. As he regained control of himself he slowly realized something and brought his hands up slowly to touch his damp hair, fearing for his life. He could not feel the little gelled up waves and spikes sticking out.

"You…. stupid…. pokemon; you… ruined my hair! NO BODY TOUCHES MY BEAUTIFUL HAIR! I'll show you how a true Pokemon battles! I CHOOSE YOU, GREG!" Greg declared as he sprinted toward the livid bear, ready to fight his own pokemon.

"Wow, just when I thought Greg could not get any more pathetic and stupid," Brian commented as he watched the two lovebirds begin to circle each other silently, ready to take their anger out on each other.

_"Oh, the stupid human is going to get killed by Slowpoke. How unfortunate,"_ Machop muttered to Sunkern as they eagerly watched the battle.

_"If he dies, do you think Brian will let me have his hat? I love that hat!"_ Sunkern wondered out loud.

"Alright, GREG USE YOUR DYNAMIC PUNCH ATTACK!" Greg ordered himself, resulting in many chuckles from bystanders. He nodded to himself in acceptance and began to pull back his right arm as far as he could. His remotely powerful biceps began to quiver as he flexed them with all of his might and launched himself toward Slowpoke, still standing several feet away. Unfortunately, because of Dynamic Punch's incredibly low accuracy, Greg found himself missing Slowpoke by a mile and tripping over his feet onto the floor instead.

Slowpoke let a low howl and raised his head to the sky. As Greg struggled to get to his feet, the bear pokemon began to glow brightly in a white light as if he was evolving. Along with blinding people with the powerful light that shined from his body, he also began to flash with scarlet dots randomly until it finally stopped, and he returned to normal, looking a great deal more powerful.

"What the heck was that? Looked like Slowpoke was laying an egg or something…" Brian asked, more concerned for the pokemon than his friend as Slowpoke began to growl at a whimpering Greg. The bulb at the end of Brian's I-Poke began to flash purple and started to say something.

_"The pokemon just used Curse attack, an attack that increases strength and defense at the expense of speed for non-ghost pokemon." _

When Greg got to his feet again, Slowpoke immediately let out a huge snarl and mauled his idiotic trainer as fiercely as he could. Greg let out a high pitched girly scream as nearly two hundred pounds of pure blubber crashed into his chest and pinned him down to the floor. His entire world was consumed by shadow as the only thing he could see was the glaring face of his Slowpoke who stared down at him with his eyes shaking and his mouth foaming.

"Hmm, should we separate them now?" Julie asked Brian.

"Nah, this is quite funny actually!" Brian commented, moving his head in different to see the battle better.

_"Is it just me or does it look like Greg is liking that position?"_ Sunkern asked with a smirk as she eyed the two.

People began to come up from below the ship to see the Slowpoke-Greg battle, thinking it was all an act for their entertainment while the teenagers who were already on the deck were down on the hardwood laughing their heads off. Even the sailors, who should have stopped the fight long ago, began to sit and watch the battle like it was a casual football game. Greg took no notice of all the attention he was getting and turned a deep shade of puce as he strained with all his might to toss the fuming pokemon off him.

"All…right…Greg…use…a…Flamethrower… attack!" Greg ordered feebly to himself, still trying to escape from the clutches of the blubbery weight that was his bear pokemon. He finally stopped trying to struggle his way out of getting raped by the bear pokemon and relaxed himself. After closing his eyes in deep tranquility for several seconds, he opened his mouth as wide as he could and blew a stream of putrid breath into Slowpoke's nostrils.

_"That looked like a Poison Gas attack to me…"_ Machop commented.

Slowpoke turned his head away to avoid inhaling Greg's breath and loosened his hold on Greg, giving the twin the opportunity to force the bear pokemon off of him. Greg immediately rose to his full height and dropped all of his weight down on the Slowpoke with an elbow drop. Slowpoke let out a tiny moan of pain and collapsed on all fours with his eyes glued shut. Many people began to boo at Greg for hurting his pokemon, but more were upset at the fact that Greg won, since they bet a few bucks against him.

Greg gave the poor fallen pokemon a nice kick in the side before marching around him, flashing all the disgusted ladies his infamous "Gregly Grin." As more people began to boo him and throw random items at him, Slowpoke's eyes suddenly flashed open in a split second, and he completely regained consciousness. Greg stood right in front of the bear pokemon's face, and his bare calves quivered oh-so-deliciously in front of Slowpoke's large mouth. The poor boy was so clueless as to why everyone stared at him nervously…

"OH MOTHER F S YOU LITTLE A …"

Greg hollered and cursed loudly for all of the ship to hear and to make the sailors grit their teeth in envy as Slowpoke took a large bite into his right calf and refused to budge, sinking his tiny teeth deeper and deeper inside the flesh. People began to look concerned, and Julie and Brian nodded at each other with mutual assurance. Brian flicked Sunkern in the back who rolled her eyes and hopped into the melee, and Julie also poked Machop in the shoulder, who also entered unenthusiastically to separate the two.

"YOU LITTLE PIECE OF S YOU ARE SO GOING TO PAY YOU LITTLE MOTHER FU…OWW!"

Sunkern launched herself from the floor straight into Greg's face and began to assault him violently while Machop began to karate chop Slowpoke's neck lightly until he finally let go of Greg's bleeding calf. As soon as Slowpoke had released hold of Greg, Sunkern leaped off of Greg's face and scurried to the railing where Greg chased her, safely away from Slowpoke. Machop then wrapped his right arm around Slowpoke's neck, dragging him backward with his muscular legs. Slowpoke thrashed and struggled with all of his might to escape the fighting pokemon's grip, managing to loosen his head and released another Water Gun straight at Greg.

Sunkern eyes widened as she saw the attack rocket toward the blonde, brainless boy, threatening to capsize him off the railing and into the murky depths of the sea below. Unfortunately for her, Greg was about to send her flying with what appeared to be a failing attempt at a Hyper Beam. Smiling softly to herself, Sunkern simply leaped onto Greg's shoulder and slid down his back like a slide in time to take the full blow of the Water Gun, which was nothing more than a refreshing bath to her.

Greg and Slowpoke stared at each other for a long time similarly to the way Greg and Julie looked at each other earlier, except this time it was nothing but pure disgust in each other eyes. They loathed each other more than anything in the world…and no seed or two foot tall little man would stop them from hurting each other!.

"MACHOP!"

"SUNKERN!"

The two pokemon cried as they were shoved aside like flies as Slowpoke and Greg knocked them out of their way and jumped into the middle of the deck to brawl once more! They clutched each others arms and rolled around the floor, attempting to bite each other's heads off. The sailors finally stood up to split up the fight once and for all, but found someone had already beat them to a job when a very pretty girl burst into the deck fuming furiously.

"I've heard enough of this battle from downstairs! This is just ridiculous now, Jigglypuff, use Sing!" she cried out pointing to the ball of brawling idiots in the middle of the deck.

From behind her, a round, one foot high, two foot wide light-pink balloon pokemon holding a small microphone came into view. The pokemon's face was inflated with fury, and her livid eyes were narrowed in annoyance. She brought the tiny microphone to her lips and opened her mouth rather widely as she began to sing.

"Jigg…alee..puff…jiggg…aleee…aleee…pufff….jigga…al eepufff….jigg…aleeepufff…jigggg…allee….puff…jiggal eee…" As the beautiful music notes began to slowly seep out of the balloon pokemon's lips and hover around the pugnacious twits, they slowly began to get steadily more and more drowsy without even realizing it.

Before Jigglypuff could even get to her last note, the two dunce buckets were already spread eagled on the floor, completely asleep. The people on the boat gave a few scattered claps for the rather enjoyable pokemon battle before getting back in their own conversations and lives. Julie and Brian smiled enthusiastically at the Jigglypuff's trainer, who was a good friend of their's from school.

"Thanks a lot Natalie! You and that Jigglypuff sure are good!" Julie commented while she and Brian dragged the limp, unconscious bodies of Greg to their feet while Machop took Slowpoke.

"We were wondering where you and Nathan were!" Brian said to the girl named Natalie. Though Greg, Julie, and Brian had very close knit and powerful relationship, that sure didn't mean they didn't have any other friends! Natalie and Nathan, two other students from their grade, were their second highest friends and the two sets of friends hung out together a lot, though deciding to go their own separate ways in the Whirl Islands.

Natalie didn't say anything at first; she kneeled down so that her Jigglypuff could hop in her arms and then stood up, all five foot seven of her incredible beauty. She made quite a few heads turns as soon as she stepped onto the ship with her straight and silky black hair that fell to her neck and extremely bright brown eyes that complimented well with her creamy white skin. Though she looked a little pale, she had a strange aura of beauty from her tall swimmer's body and dark features that made guys like Greg go, "HUBBA BEESA MEESA MOOOOOO!"

"No problem! Nathan's coming up soon, he's playing a game of foozball with someone. So, I can't believe we're finally off! Nathan and I are going to have so much fun, I hope we meet up with you three a lot of times along the way! What are you guys planning to do? I know I want to collect and train normal pokemon and then get the badges with them! Whitney only has another ten years, and I'm going to take her place!" Natalie responded with her high and girly voice. Unlike Julie, she was in no way shape or form a feminist and instead was very girly, though she definitely was no brainless bimbo.

"Yeah, I'm going to get the eight badges, Sleepyhead here is going for the Whirl Cup, and Julie doesn't really know yet…" Brian responded, trying not to stare at Natalie for too long.

"Pssh, I'm doing the badges too dudes. All I want to do is hit the waves and check out the fine ladies, but I won't be able to live with myself if my good friend Natalie here became Champion, and I didn't get a bite at the apple!"

The three turned around to see a voice coming from the stairs. Sure enough, from it emerged none other than Nathan Oliver, best friend to Natalie and typical surfer dude. Nathan walked up to the three of them. He had wavy blonde hair, dark blue eyes that always seemed to be zoned out, and a dark tan from countless hours of being in the water. Wearing a white t shirt and swim trunks, it was clear he planned on surfing as soon as he hit land. Being a frequent surfer, he had a strong athletic built, which the girls loved. Greg had great animosity and envy toward Nathan, for being able to get girls without even trying.

"Yo, what are you guys still doing up here? We've all seen the ocean and its _totally rad_ waves, but downstairs we can finally have our first legal pokemon battle!" Nathan commented, pointing to the stairs below.

The three friends gave nervous chuckles and looked around each other nervously. One of the laws that came with the rise of the Soccer Mom included making pokemon battling illegal for children below thirteen. Apparently, some little kid named Timmy Turner got eaten by an Onix in Rock Tunnel in a tragic attempt to capture him with his bug catching net…. Either that, or he just had his straw hat stolen; it's not like soccer moms do their research anyway.

"Sure, let's go! Machop and I have been itching to play jump rope with that Tangela of yours for a while now! What about these two over here though?" Julie asked, giving Greg a nice hard kick in the back. He still slept soundly, and was even using a very powerful Snore and Sleep Talk attack!

"No problem again. YO TANGELA! COME AND GET THAT SLOWPOKE! I suppose your Machop can take Greg, I don't think he's _quite_ strong enough to lift such a heavy pokemon unlike my powerful beast of a pokemon!" Nathan sneered with a bit of a cocky voice. Julie scowled and patted her Machop's head affectionately.

_"I don't think __you're_ quite smart enough to not get eaten by a Tentacruel by the first gym!"

From behind Nathan, a big mass of interlocking navy vines popped out and scurried over to Slowpoke. The only part of her round body not covered in vines was the small space in the center of her face where two white eyes peered out. One of the reason's Nathan loved this grass pokemon, Tangela, so much was that her little red feet were great for maintaining balance on a surfboard.

Using her main ability, she released four vines from somewhere within the bramble that made up her body and coiled up Slowpoke in her grip. As she first attempted to pull her vines back in and lift up Slowpoke, her eyes immediately bulged, and the "powerful beast" fell back. Finally, she lifted the behemoth of a pokemon with great strain onto her back with the auxiliary of several other vines, slowly trudging downstairs.

_"My…. God…., lay off….. the potato…. chips, Fatty!"_

Nathan giggled nervously at Tangela's troubles while Julie and Machop simply smirked. With only one arm, Machop swept Greg into the crook of his elbow and tossed him over his shoulders like a backpack. The fighting pokemon then went and followed the grass pokemon downstairs, Greg's head dragging on the floor as he walked. After such a display of power, Brian and Natalie looked at their own "weaker" pokemon self consciously.

"Well, you might not be able to carry pokemon, people, or well just about anything on your back Sunkern, but I still have my faith in you!" Brian yelled encouragingly to the grass pokemon, who was back on his shoulder again. The seed pokemon responded by giving a little leap of victory, plummeting straight to the floor as Brian walked forward to go downstairs.

The interior of the ship was just as amazing and stunning as everyone thought it would be. It looked more like one giant Rec Room with extensions to other rooms and a corner rife with fattening, tooth destroying refreshments. It was carpeted with beautiful Indian material and scattered with many comfortable chairs and couches (which Tangela and Machop placed Slowpoke and Greg on). For entertainment, multiple big screen televisions, game consoles, pool tables, foozball tables, in short, all the things that a teenager would love were spread out all around the different rooms. Nathan pointed to another stairway on the right wall with a large picture of a gold and green Pokeball painted over it. Below it lay the Battle Room, a room designed in memory of little Timothy, where trainers could safely have their "first" battles under the supervision of certified sailors.

"Hmm, this is pretty damn good for an eight hour boat ride!" Brian commented to Sunkern, who was nervously hopping behind him, struggling to keep up.

"How about we start off with me against Julie, battle of the divas of Cianwood, and then Brian against Nathan, battle of the hunks of Johto!" Natalie piped up as the four friends sat down on an unoccupied couch to discuss what they would do. Brian turned a bright shade of red that easily complimented his crimson hair at being called a hunk while Julie scowled at being called such a demeaning term as "diva." She wanted to be called a hunk too!

"STOP MAKING FUN OF FEMINISTS JACKASS!" Julie cried out randomly, resulting in her getting anxious stares from everyone in the vicinity. "Ermm, yeah. And then afterward it's winner against winner? It's going to suck not being able to fight you Nathan since Brian is going to beat you down!"

"Right, I'm sure he will," Nathan said sarcastically, pointing to the seed pokemon who was still panting from having to hop down the stairs. "What about Greg and Slowpoke? Shouldn't we incorporate them somehow? I heard Slowpoke battling someone upstairs and then I came up seeing him asleep. He could be a pretty formidable opponent!"

His question about the slight chance of Slowpoke and Greg being any good got him an astonished stare from Natalie and a myrrh of laughter from Julie and Brian. After Julie and Brian finally calmed down, Brian was the one to respond. "Dude, _Greg_ was fighting Slowpoke. You missed one of the funniest things of the century! Though you are right, that Slowpoke _is_ a lot stronger than we take him for."

"Damn it, why do I miss the funniest things? But, hey, I did meet this one sexy babe, and we did get a little battle going, and I was about to…errm yeah, I think we should head down already," Nathan added quickly upon seeing the furious looks on Natalie and Julie's faces. He was the first to stand up with Tangela following him downstairs. The rest soon followed.

The Battle Room in the deepest floor of the ship was much more amazing then they could have imagined. It was nearly twice the size of Chuck's gym's battlefield, though split into four parts. Over in the far right was a plain white battlefield, next to it was a grassy, vegetation rife meadow, next to that was a opaque pool, and at the far right was a rocky mountainous battlefield. The last three were occupied by other trainers enjoying the joys of pokemon battling, but the normal battlefield was completely empty.

The four were about to head to the normal battlefield when an extremely grumpy, chubby sailor with a large, brown bird pokemon flying besides him stopped them in their tracks. They had never seen a more repugnant looking man, he had a thick muzzle and extremely oily hair wearing a large sailors outfit that could hardly keep his large stomach in place. He walked across the battlefield with a bit of a limp and wheezing vehemently.

"Stop it yeh little ingrates! Don kids these days have as much mind ter at least hear out the rules! Anyways, don't yeh dare use powerful attacks or powerful pokemon! Some genius sunk the S.S. Lapras having his Rhydon use Earthquake! If I see one of yeh breaking this rule, you and yer pokemon will feel the wrath of my Fearow!" the grumpy sailor ordered, bearing his bright yellow teeth and hissing his rancid breath which they could still smell from a few feet away. The Fearow gave an ominous cry as she spun her menacing, large orange beak and flying around the four children, digging his orange beak around their clothes as if to sniff out drugs.

When the repugnant man and his Fearow finally let them be, they exchanged each other strange looks. They hadn't been that disturbed since the time Greg came to the last Halloween Costume Party as an Olympic swimmer, wearing nothing but a pink speedo… Shaking the horrible thought aside, they took their places on opposites sides of the Normal Battlefield, Brian with Julie and Nathan with Natalie.

"Ready for this Machop? Remember, you have the fighting pokemon advantage over Jigglypuff, a normal pokemon. Watch out for the Sing Attack, other than that, you have absolutely nothing to worry about! You're going to pop that little balloon!" Julie whispered to her Machop, who nodded at her every word, thinking about how funny it would be if Jigglypuff did explode and left a mess of blood and guts.

"Ok Jigglypuff, you just knocked out a two hundred pound pokemon and the world's most caffienated boy with your beautiful singing voice! You can crush that man baby, just remember the immortal words of Muhammad Ali! I can fly like a Butterfree but sing like a Beedrill!" Natalie mumbled to her Jigglypuff, who nodded at every word, thinking about how the hell a Beedrill can sing.

"Alright Sunkern, watch this battle carefully! If we beat Tangela, we're going to be fighting one of these two pokemon!" Brian said to his Sunkern, who wobbled at his every word, thinking about why there was so much unneeded repetition going on.

The two pokemon took their places on opposite sides of the battlefield and bowed to each other, secretly flicking each other off: Machop, an extremely power gray humanoid pokemon trained in the art of battle by hand and foot, and Jigglypuff, a round, pink balloon who was trained in the art of slapping and singing. Machop closed his eyes tightly, raised his left palm, and put his right foot behind him, ready for battle. Jigglypuff in turn closed her eyes tightly and brought her tiny microphone to her lips, her mouth slightly ajar, ready to sing. It was time to battle!

"MACHOP USE KARATE CHOP!"

"JIGGLYPUFF USE SING!"

Machop immediately leaped high into the air and extended his right arm as far forward as he could. His karate chopping palm shined brightly with pure physical force manifested in the form of white light. Though the force of the Karate Chop could probably crack her skull, Jigglypuff remained calm and started to sing once again with her eyes tightly closed.

"Jigg…alee…pufff….jiggalee…alee…puff…"

Julie looked nervously at Machop, whose eyelids began to droop, and hoped that he would find some brilliant way to counter the attack, because if she ordered something, Natalie would be able to easily deflect whatever Machop threw at her. All the training at Chuck's gym and years of bonding with Julie came to use with Machop's next actions. Machop immediately stopped his attack mid-air (something that no regular pokemon would be able to do) and leaped backward, landing in the middle of the battlefield.

His glowing palm immediately returned to normal, and just before Machop was about to fall unconscious from the balloon pokemon's song, he shoved two gray fingers as tightly as he could into his ears. Most of the song was drowned out so that even if Machop felt a little drowsy, he didn't fall asleep. Julie grinned broadly at her Machop's quick thinking and reflexes while Natalie's previously cocky face immediately became worried. Only Jigglypuff remained serenely unaware of the fact that Machop was not sleeping like a Smoochum as he ran toward her with his right foot glowing and his fingers in his ears.

Luckily for the balloon pokemon, she opened her eyes a few seconds before Machop's Low Kick attack made contact. Letting out a tiny shriek, she immediately curled up into a ball, holding herself tightly, awaiting the powerful blow. With a big smile, Machop kicked Jigglypuff as hard as he could like a soccer ball, causing her to sail across the battlefield and right into Natalie's nose.

"OWW! WATCH WHERE YOUR LITTLE FREAK KICKS MY JIGGLYPUFF! GOD DAMN IT! OH MY…GAH!" Natalie sobbed as she clutched her bleeding nose with great care. Machop stared in horror at the human he hurt, though he was on the floor laughing internally. Julie, Brian, and Nathan also looked at the sobbing, bleeding Natalie with horror, but because of their cruel, teenager instincts they also began to chortle fiercely, but seriously trying with all their efforts to hold it back!

"Errm…Natalie…do…you…need an…ice…p-pack?" Julie struggled to say, her voice breaking from her strong urge to laugh.

"I…have..some..t-tissu…HAHAHA. My…ha…I'm so sorry…HAHA!" Brian also added, holding up a box of tissues he recovered from within his backpack.

"Guys stop being so mean! You guys are Natalie's friends and….oh who the hell am I kidding? This is hilarious!" Nathan chastised, holding his stomach laughing at Natalie's misfortune as well.

If looks could kill, everyone in the room would have been grinded into a fine powder of blood and bones because of the look of pure rage and contempt in Natalie's eyes. She took out this anger on the person nearest to her, Nathan, by punching him as hard as she could in the worst place possible. Nathan immediately stopped laughing, and his eyes bulged out of their sockets as he plopped sideways onto the floor, letting out a huge groan of pain. Natalie then turned her shaking eyes to Brian and Julie with a look that said "Help me now or else I will beat your ass down!"

Julie and Brian immediately stopped laughing, and Brian rushed up to the other side of the battlefield with the box of tissues. Machop still stood in the middle of the battlefield, frozen with trepidation and convulsing slightly, worrying if the crazy female would take her anger out on him as well. Brian was too scared to get near the livid female and her groaning friend, and simply slid the tissue down the battlefield toward her, which thudded softly against her shoe. Natalie silently pulled out several tissues from the box and covered her bleeding nose with it, still watching Brian with the deadly look as he walked back to his side of the battlefield.

Natalie then moved her dangerous gaze to Julie, who scratched her head nervously, not sure what to do next. "Errm, you can take the victory by default since you did…."

"**_NO!_**" Natalie roared, leaping to her feet and spraying several droplets of blood downward. Her voice was very nasal and sounded like a foghorn, but no one dared to make fun of her again.

She panted heavily and glared at Machop and Julie, thirsting deeply for cold vengeance. Then, she turned to Jigglypuff, who was still curled tightly in a ball, too scared of Machop to come out. What she didn't know was that there was a beast more frightening than any three hundred armed fighting pokemon standing only a few feet away from her. Natalie gave Jigglypuff a little nudge with her shoe, and the pokemon immediately popped out of its ball, yelping at the sight of her angry, bleeding trainer. Natalie wouldn't allow her pokemon to just stand there and shiver like a little baby, she pointed furiously to the battlefield where Jigglypuff walked toward rather quickly, looking back at her trainer nervously with one eye, as if she would stomp on her at any given second.

Julie hissed at Machop who immediately retreated back to his side of the battlefield, remaining transfixed by the sight that was Natalie. "We are going to finish this battle! And it will be a _fun_ and _educational_ experience that we will never forget! My Jigglypuff will beat your Machop down, and we are going to have a delightfully good time watching it!" Natalie stated to Julie, with a very quiet yet furious voice.

"Right, errm, get ready Machop!" Julie ordered unenthusiastically. Machop got back into his battle stance of holding his left palm out and putting his right foot back. Jigglypuff became livid too, because of the fact that Machop made her trainer furious. Her cheeks were inflated with fury and her eyes narrowed in dislike.

"Machop Chop Chop (Looks like your singing doesn't only make people's ears bleed)…"

"Jiggly Jiggly (I'll bust yo kneecaps foo')!"

"Now, Jigglybuff. MELEE STYLE!" Natalie ordered pointing furiously at Machop.

Jigglypuff immediately leaped surprisingly high into the air with her cheeks still inflated. As she reached the zenith of her jump, she slowly sucked in tiny puffs of air and slowly ascended higher and higher into the air as her cheeks grew larger and larger until she was directly floating over Machop himself. Julie wondered what Natalie was trying to do, but didn't want to find out and intended to stop Jigglypuff before she could.

"Machop! Jump and use Karate Chop!"

Machop's right palm glowed white once more, and he leaped high into the air ready to drive Jigglypuff into the floor. When he came face to face with the balloon pokemon, she gave a tiny smile and giggle, raising her glowing right hand as well.

"POUND HIM DOWN JIGGLYBUFF!"

As soon as Natalie gave her command, Jigglypuff and Machop's palms made fierce contact and struggled to overcome each other. The hands glowed white with pure energy and steadily became more and more bright as they struggled to break the stalemate. Julie and Brian stared in awe at Jigglypuff; her hand was barely the size of Machop's pinky, yet it was somehow just as formidable in an angry Pound attack. Jigglypuff grew tired of the stalemate and conked Machop in the head with her other hand as hard as she could, causing him to plummet nearly six feet down to the floor.

"_BEAT HIM DOWN!_" Natalie roared audibly, causing many nearby battlers to jump with fear,

Machop groaned as his back cracked in the powerful impact of his fall, and Jigglypuff wasted no time staying in the air and immediately exhaled all the air in her cheeks, rocketing herself downward onto the fighting pokemon's chest with quite a bit of force. Machop's eyes grew wide as he saw the wicked smile on Jigglypuff's face as she raised her right hand high. She slapped him once, and a stinging sensation immediately rippled through Machop's cheek. The poor pokemon could only lay down helplessly as his cruel opponent slapped him silly, stomped on his chest, and gave him an occasional punch in the nose. Natalie laughed madly at the poor pokemon's abuse causing Nathan to crawl as far away from her as he could. Ideas began to rush around Julie's head as she struggled to find a way to save Machop from the painful situation.

"Let's see…Low Kick, Focus Energy, Karate Chop, what was the other one…OH! Machop, try using a Leer attack!"

Machop opened his eyes with a great deal of effort and looked straight at the abusive Jigglypuff. Upon seeing Machop's bright red, pupil less eyes, Jigglypuff immediately jumped off of Machop's chest and began to run away shaking in fear.

"Use Focus Energy! Then, _show her the true power of a pokemon_!" Julie ordered savagely, smiling knowing the battle was hers.

"Sunkern Kern Kern (GET HER MACHOP)!"

"Tangela Tangela (GET BACK IN THERE YOU IDIOT)!"

The other pokemon cried out their encouragements as Machop returned to his battle stance and closed his eyes tightly, beginning to glow blood red with power as he focused all of his energy into his single palm. Jigglypuff scurried faster toward her trainer as she looked back to see Machop's entire body about to combust with scarlet light. As tears of fright began to stream out of Jigglypuff's eyes, her running became more and more choppy, and she ended up falling flat on her face after tripping over her own feet. Natalie's evil attitude went away as quickly as it came when she saw the petrified look on Jigglypuff's face as she got up to face Machop.

It truly was a frightening sight. His eyes were red and blank of all emotion while his right hand was flaring with crimson flames, and his whole body burned with a white hot aura of pure power! Machop then brought his open palm to his side and slowly turned it sideways until it was in position to chop Jigglypuff in half. The poor balloon pokemon couldn't bring herself to move a muscle even though her brain and trainer were begging for her to get out of the way. As Machop leaped high into the air with his flaming palm out and ready to kill, Jigglypuff screwed up her eyes as tight as she could and braced herself for the impact.

"JIGGGLYYYYYYPUFFFFF!"

Machop was still in the position he was when his palm struck Jigglypuff, hovering over the poor pokemon with his palm held out, his legs placed behind him, and his entire body flaring with energy. Jigglypuff wobbled around in place, her eyes swirling and her brain moaning. With one final "puff" Jigglypuff fell knocked out on the floor.

"Jigglypuff is dead! Machop and Julie are the winners!" declared Nathan as he walked over to the two pokemon to state the obvious.

"QUIET JERK! Congratulations Julie! That was a bretty good battle! Poor Jigglybuff though, she must be really hurt! Sorry about how bitchy I got earlier, friends?" Natalie asked Julie as she cradled her pokemon like a mother with one hand and held the mass of tissues to her nose with the other.

"Don't worry about it Natalie, I would have been pissed off too! Sorry, that attack was way more powerful than it should have been. I have some Super Potions in my pack, I'll give Jigglypuff some! That was one great "first" battle!" Julie said as she walked over to Natalie and gently rubbed Jigglypuff's back.

"It's nothing! I'm sure little Timmy and his hat would be very proud!" Natalie responded, causing everyone to chuckle. While chuckling, Brian and Nathan then turned their gazes to each other. It was their turn to battle now.


	3. All Aboard the SS Mantine! Part Two!

**Chapter 2.5- All Aboard the S.S. Mantine! Part Two!**

"Here Babe, feeling better yet?" Nathan asked his best friend soothingly while he caressed her back and handed her more tissues.

Natalie nodded softly as he wrapped on arms around her, and she rested her head against his right shoulder. They sat on their side of the battlefield, waiting until the blood pouring out of Natalie's nose finally froze stagnant. Julie and Brian avoided each other's eyes, trying not to shout out the obvious to the two oblivious teenagers in front of them. The four chattered for the next fifteen minutes, waiting for Natalie to heal and Jigglypuff to finally come out of her mini coma.

"Alright, I'm fine now. Thanks a lot Nathan, I believe it's time for your battle with Brian. Battle of the grass types…" Natalie commented as she stood up and wiped away the remnants of the blood from her nose with her hand.

Julie gave a small smile and pat on the back to Brian who stepped up to his part of the battlefield with a nervous Sunkern by his side. Sunkern pursed her tiny mouth tight and slowly hopped forward, keeping her eyes on the large vine pokemon in front of her. All the pokemon she ever fought were weak like Ratatta or buzzed like that Aipom from the heavy metal concert. Tangela would be the first real challenge she ever had. Meanwhile, the vine pokemon simply smirked to herself, not worried at all since she did inherit her trainer's over confidence.

_"Bring it on Shorty! Don't know what Carrot Top over there sees in you…" _Tangela taunted, drawing out a lone, teal vine and pointing it at herself.

_"The only reason Surfer over there likes you is because he's into bondage!" _the seed pokemon responded, giving herself a tiny boost of confidence. Brian smiled at the two pokemon, wondering what absolutely wonderful and pleasant things they were saying to each other, and looked down at his own Sunkern before kneeling down to her ear.

"All right Sunkern, here we go! First official battle… we've practiced pretty damn fiercely enough to make little Timmy's hat turn in its rocky prison! All right, Absorb and Mega Drain may be our only attacks now, but we also have Growth on our hands! Power up and then all out, that's our strategy! Hmm, wonder what this I-Poke thing has to say about Tangela…"

Sunkern gave an assuring nod to her trainer, who in turn pointed the tiny device of wonders at the opposing pokemon, after pressing the wrong button multiple times. A holographic image of a Tangela immediately projected forward from the I-Poke's screen and at the same monotonous voice began to speak once more.

_"Tangela, the grass pokemon. This pokemon is famous for being one of the few grass pokemon who rely on powerful physical abilities (namely their vines) and has no evolutions or pre-evolutions. This one is currently at level sixteen and knows Constrict, Sleep Powder, and Vine Whip. _

"Hey! It's that I-Poke Mini thing that you were telling me about earlier! Wow, it is such a technological innovation! I can't wait to get my mother to buy me one yet again for Christmas!" Nathan cried out with the same blank and rehearsed expression and voice Chuck had earlier. The three humans and four pokemon gave him an odd look for a few seconds, before looking back to the battlefield.

Sunkern and Tangela gazed at each other warily, anxiously awaiting for the first orders…

"VINE WHIP!"

"DODGE AND ABSORB!"

Tangela immediately clamped her eyes shut and shot forward two thick teal vines at the seed pokemon. Sunkern inhaled a good deal of air, puffing up her tiny chest and preparing to make her first move. She stood adamantly on the ground until the thick vines were only a few inches and a split second away from her. Right before they struck her, she hopped a few inches up into the air and leaned toward the right. Tangela's eyes narrowed in annoyance, considering it an insult that the seed pokemon could think she could escape the attack by simply jumping. The vine pokemon redirected her vines toward the right to finish the job, however, Sunkern giggled like usual and changed direction mid-air to the left.

_"I hear surfing makes you lose brain cells!" _

As Sunkern fell safely to ground left of the vines, Tangela lost control of her attack which kept on speeding to the right and couldn't change direction. The seed pokemon took advantage of this and began to use her Absorb attack. Standing very still, she closed her eyes gracefully and began to glow a light green shade. The light then began to surround the struggling Tangela as well. Tangela stopped trying to pull her vines in and temporarily looked at the dim light surrounding her before shrugging it off and going back to her internal struggle. Tiny bubbles of the same green color began to pop out and drift away from the vine pokemon and toward Sunkern, but they disappeared before they even floated two feet! Both Brian and his pokemon stood in disbelief at the failure of the attack while Nathan and his own pokemon just stood and laughed.

"Pssh, come on Brian I thought you were smarter than that. Grass attacks have _very_ little effect on other Grass pokemon. You Phail!" Nathan commented.

_"Have you been surfing, Shorty?" _

Sunkern scowled at her opponent, and Brian began to scratch the side of his head vigorously, something he did whenever he thought particularly hard. Out of the blue, Tangela's vines finally stopped in mid-air and immediately swept toward Sunkern once more, this time with the auxiliary of a third vine. Brian immediately stopped thinking and decided to go with his gut and first instinct.

"Mega Drain!" 

Sunkern screwed her eyes tightly in concentration, and the light surrounding her grew much larger to a bright yellow color, making her look like a tiny little sun. The same light surrounded Tangela once more, but it made little difference as all three vines came crashing into the seed pokemon! The four trainers let out a groan of pain as Sunkern struggled to get up once more, three bright red marks now on her chest. Tangela let her vines droop to the floor as she huffed and puffed; controlling three fifteen feet long vines going nearly fifteen m.p.h was no easy feat. Sunkern brought herself to full height, huffing and puffing as well. She stared at the cocky pokemon, who raised the tips of her vines toward herself, with burning disdain. There was no way she was about to let Brian down.

"SUNKERRRN!"

Though she didn't officially know the attack, Sunkern launched herself with considerable speed toward her opponent in a full blown tackle. Time seemed to slow down as Sunkern sped through the air, defying the taunts of all of her greatest critics. Julie and Natalie's eyes slowly followed the little yellow blur while Brian's fist circled in the air as he encouraged his pokemon. Nathan let out his hand and cried out the typical "Nooooo!" as the speedy Sunkern made contact with his wide-eyed Tangela…

She bounced off.

_"Damn you Nature!" _

Time immediately went back to normal as Sunkern struggled to stand once more after being knocked back from the excessive force of her own attack. Nathan struggled to command an attack while laughing his head off, but Tangela was also too busy to obey, rolling around the battlefield in a fit of laughter. Sunkern and Brian had turned a similar shade of crimson as they slowly shook in their spots. The seed pokemon turned to face her trainer who nodded back at her. No one laughed at them and gets away with it!

"Ok Sunkern, no more playing around! I have a plan; I want you to dodge all of Tangela's attacks and every single time you get even a split second of safety, use Growth! Keep this until that overgrown weed gets exhausted!" Brian commanded, with his eyes stone cold with anger and his finger quivering at Nathan and Tangela.

"Calm down Brian, yeesh! It's just a battle ya know!" Nathan said, looking worried at the looks of anger on the two opponents faces, though nowhere close to Natalie's rage against Julie. "Oh, and I have a plan as well! Tangela, bring Sunkern close to you! Don't care how, just do it!"

_"Who are you calling a weed, Carrot Top?" _

Tangela got up to her feet at once and stared at Sunkern who was flashing light green with a Growth attack. Rolling her eyes at the puny pokemon's attempts to be big and strong, Tangela shot off several vines toward the seed pokemon, in hopes of carrying out her trainer's orders and bring the enemy close. Grinning broadly, Sunkern leaped over the vines and hopped all around the battlefield, avoiding Tangela's vines which steadily increased in number and occasionally flashing light green with a Growth attack whenever she got the chance.

While this continued, Julie and Natalie began to talk to each other. They were no longer by their male friends but rather sitting together in the center of the right side of the battlefield with their pokemon, watching the battle from up close. Machop laid down on his stomach and watched the battle with his fists on his cheeks while Jigglypuff was awake and flaring, though struggling to get out of her trainer's arms to give Machop a nice slap for beating her in battle.

"This is a pretty good battle, though it will only be better than ours if Tangela 'accidentally' hits Nathan in the face with all those vines. I have no idea who'll win. What do you think their plans are?" Natalie asked.

Tangela was still chasing Sunkern with her vines, still standing in the same spot she started the battle in. Though exhausted from the constant motion all around her, she somehow managed to release more and more vines while Sunkern managed to jump over each and every one of them, managing to find time to sneak in a quick Growth attack as well.

"Growth powers up special attacks like Mega Drain right? Brian is definitely powering his attacks up. I have a bad idea about Tangela though…. Nathan wants Sunkern up close, and I think I know why," Julie replied.

_"You beat her Tangela! And then cream that ugly fish-headed moron for beating me!" _Jigglypuff screamed.

Machop gave Jigglypuff another leering eye and the balloon pokemon twitched in her trainers arms out of fear. _"Sunkern, you have it in you! I'll understand if you want to lose because you don't want to face a strong pokemon like me..."_

Sunkern smirked while dodging eight of Tangela's thick blue vines and flashing a strong green shade sporadically. When Sunkern jumped onto one of the vines and jumped to the right, Tangela's instinct proved correct as a strong ninth vine came hurtling through the arena and knocked Sunkern out of the air and onto the ground. All nine vines swooped downward toward Sunkern and struck her. The seed pokemon winced horribly at the painful blow, but it wasn't over as two of the vines wrapped around Sunkern tight while the other seven flew back into the main bramble. 

_"You should have taken Machop's advice!" _

"Ah crap!" Brian moaned, trying to think if Sunkern would be able to get out of this situation as well.

"Oh yeah! Now Tangela, bring Sunkern face to face!" Nathan commanded with a big white grin. Tangela pulled Sunkern in closely when Sunkern closed her eyes tightly in coordination with Brian's command.

"MEGA DRAIN!"

Tangela's entire body was blinded by the bright yellow light and a sphere of energy roughly half the size of the vine pokemon herself came toward Sunkern and replenished nearly a sixth of her stamina. The pokemon's eyes widened as she saw the big chunk of energy Sunkern absorbed from her. Immediately, her endurance took a sharp fall and her vines collapsed along with bonded Sunkern, who was now only a few feet away from Tangela and still draining energy. 

"Wow, all that growing sure helped. Looks like this battle is over," Natalie grumbled. Machop was rooting Sunkern on while Natalie struggled to hold an inflated cheeked Jigglypuff.

"It is over, but not for whom you think," Julie moaned with her face in her hands.

"Send Sunkern to where Greg and Slowpoke are!" Nathan ordered with a look of determination. Tangela's energy was diminishing fast, but somehow, along with another large sphere of energy, she released a cloud of green powder. _Sleep Powder_. Sunkern plopped asleep on the floor before she could even take in the life energy.

Tangela was released from the sooped up Mega Drain attack and sighed. She had little energy left, but was determined to finish the battle off. "Tangela, give it all you got!" Nathan commanded with his blue eyes shining brightly. It would all be over soon.

Tangela released about six vines and brought them to her right side, constricting them and combining them into one thick club like vine. Brian bit his lower lip hard and squinted, unable to watch the sight. With a great heave, Tangela swung the vines straight at Sunkern like a baseball! If it was baseball, Tangela would have definitely hit a home run as Sunkern soared across the battlefield, landing right at her trainer's feet, awakened by the blow and with her eyes swirling.

"Looks like you won. Oh well, it was a great battle. Is your Tangela okay?" Brian asked rather quickly, before even picking up his pokemon. His brown eyes were looking away from everyone. This was his first battle ever, and he lost. There would be other battles he knew that, but there was just something special about the first one.

"I suppose, those last Mega Drains did do a little damage though! And….my goodness! Stop looking so sad! You and Natalie take battling waaay too seriously, and that's why you guys lose! Yeesh!" Nathan yelped upon seeing the dejected look on his opponent's face.

Brian immediately looked up self-consciously and gave a rather phony grin and thumbs up while Sunkern began to stir from being knocked out. The other three also gave phony laughter in response. The poor losing boy immediately felt a little better as he laughed with everyone else about losing. After all, the only person who should feel bad was Sunkern, who was rather sore from getting clubbed by all those vines. She finally woke up, very groggy though. The two losers exchanged a small smile that said, "Yeah we lost, but it's cool!"

"So yeah, I think we should take a nice long break before Nathan and I go at it. Don't want to have too many battles at once and can't leave Greg by himself for too long. Alright with you guys?" Julie commented, breaking the rather tense mood among the four. Everyone nodded in agreement and walked toward the exit, prattling and behaving like normal teenagers once more.

When they turned to leave the room for their respite from battling, they heard the door open and slam fiercely from upstairs, while someone or something repeatedly banged it over and over. Then, the person entering the room revealed himself as Greg as he scurried downstairs with an unfazed Slowpoke by his side. At last, the pounding on the door ceased, but the lummox and his bitch were still panting heavily. Clearly, they needed to run a bit more rather than sitting at home and watching old episodes of Baywatch.

"T-t-here you guys are! Thanks for drugging and abandoning me jerks! I could have been raped you know!" Greg huffed, giving his bear pokemon a rather disgruntled glare. Before one of the abandoners/druggers could respond, Greg started to talk once more upon seeing the pokemon all worn out. "What the hell happened here? Did you guys battle without me? UGG! You guys missed out you know! Slowpoke and I here would have kicked all your butts! Give a roar Slowpoke!"

"Slow…" With one great yawn, Slowpoke shut his eyes and snuggled himself back to a deep slumber, leaving a fuming Greg, laughing Brian and Julie, and confused Nathan and Natalie.

"Yes Greg, I'm sure you and your Slowpoke would have cleaned the floor with us, look at that big scary face! We couldn't _possibly_ stand up to you two since you guys are waaay out of our league! Anyway, Julie took on Natalie and won while I took on Nathan and…" Brian trailed off. Greg looked at the bruised Sunkern in horror and then moved his eyes up to the smirking Tangela before giving Brian a nice slap upside the head.

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU! HOW COULD YOU LOSE AGAINST GHETTO SURFER CONFUSED STEREOTYPE DUDE OVER THERE! YOU MUST BE HORRIBLE!" Greg roared while Brian just rolled his eyes. Putting his hands in his hair in rage to find his best friend defeated by his big pimpin' rival, the blonde boy walked in circles while everyone waited for him to do something stupid. He stopped in front of a flustered Nathan, beet red with fury. "You and me, RIGHT NOW! Brian only lost because he's a little sissy stapistics ana….OWW!"

Everyone gazed in shock at the sight they saw. Upon Greg calling him a sissy, Brian drove his fist into Greg's cheek, knocking him to the ground and now stood over him with his dangerous smile burning the air around him. "I may be a 'sissy stapistics analist', Greg, but please remember, that this sissy stapistics analist can also kick your ass!"

Julie grinned and gave Brian a thumb up for not taking crap from Greg, though it wasn't exactly a huge accomplishment to beat Greg down. Despite getting kicked to the ground, Greg stood up calmly and quietly brushed the dirt off his side, pretending nothing had happened. "So, what do you say Nathan?"

"Ehh, I dunno. My Tangela's a bit tired from the battle with Sunkern…" Nathan started, but he was stopped by his Tangela, who raised her vine and nodded, signaling she wanted to battle. Giving Slowpoke a particularly hard kick in the side, Greg and his pokemon walked to the battlefield with Nathan and Tangela. The other three remained at the stairs, knowing the battle wouldn't last too long.

_"What are we doing?" _Slowpoke droned as he looked lazily around the battlefield that he was dimly aware of standing on.

_"We're battling so get ready ya dimwit!" _the vine pokemon snapped from the other side of the battlefield. She really was exhausted from the previous battle, but didn't have a problem with finishing up this battle to protect her trainer's honor from the stupid boy with the tendency to get beat up. Slowpoke growled at her insult and got into the partial battling mood once more.

"All right Lummox, use your Water Gun attack!" Greg commanded confidently, as he pulled a tube of gel from his pocket and began to apply it to the front of his hair. Nathan opened his mouth to give an order, but Tangela was way ahead of him and already drew her vines out to quickly end this. Slowpoke opened his mouth nice and wide to release a foaming pillar of water, but before he could release the attack, Tangela shot her vines forward and wrapped them around the bear pokemon's mouth.

Like a scene from a cartoon, Slowpoke's mouth began to fill up with an immense amount of water, unable to escape from the binds of Tangela's vines. His cheeks slowly inflated as the water began to quickly and painfully stretch the pink flesh and threatened to make it explode! Finally, Slowpoke's tire sized cheeks could no longer hold any of the water and shot off with a great deal of pressure across the battlefield and into the wall safely away from Tangela and Nathan, leaving a drenched streak across the tiles and a rather foreboding crack on the wall of the ship. With the great force of the attack, Slowpoke backfired straight into Greg and now lay unconscious over his struggling trainer. While poor Greg struggled to get his behemoth of a pokemon off of him once more, Nathan and Tangela simply walked off, smiling at their second victory in ten minutes.

"We'll be upstairs now Gregory! You and Slowpoke play nice now!" Julie yelled as everyone else went upstairs, leaving their squashed friend behind. Greg cursed his sister as she walked off and continued his odyssey to escape the blubbery confines of his Slowpoke. When all hope seemed to be lost, he finally saw the grumpy sailor with the Fearow approaching him, with his rotting yellow teeth bared.

"Woah! Someone drank a bit too much coffee… Could you help me out, Mr. Ugly?" Greg requested, demonstrating his amazing disability of detecting people's dispositions.

The grumpy sailor gave a huge snarl and kicked the Slowpoke off of Greg with his hefty right calf and then pulled up Greg to full height by the newly created spikes in his hair. The idiotic boy still remained serenely unaware of the sailor's anger as he gave him a tiny thank you and began to walk off, before feeling a powerful grip on his shoulder. Greg turned around, ready to explain to the sailor that he had some ladies to try and hit, but instead, got pulled up by the man by his collar and right into his face. They were face to face now, terrified boy and ugly old man. The sailor's yellow tinted eyes quivered down at Greg, who tried to look away from the numerous lines and scars on the man's face. Finally, he moved his chapped lips and sprayed a good deal of sour spit and foul breath into his victim's face as he spoke.

"You stupid little kid, _look at what you did!_" He turned Greg mid-air to face the drenched battlefield and marched toward the crack in the wall, displaying a good deal of power as he still held a choking Greg high in the air by his shirt collar. "I have to mop this goddamn floor, and do you see that crack? The ship could have gotten a hole and sunk! Do you want us all to die? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?"

Greg shuddered in fear as his face was bathed in the grumpy sailor's spit. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that the other battlers in the room also stared in horror, ready for the insane sailor to pull out a chainsaw and start harvesting body parts. This truly was not a good day for Greg at all. "With all due respect, Sir, it was that pretty boy Nathan who ordered the attack that caused this huge me-"

"SHUT UP!"

Greg gave a painful groan as his head cracked against the floor when the crazy old sailor threw him down. He began to growl maniacally as he slowly cracked his knuckles and gave a nod to the Fearow flying besides him. The bird pokemon gave a menacing caw and immediately dive bombed toward the poor boy and his Slowpoke.

"OWW! What the heck is wrong with you! Ow! Ow!" Greg cried as the Fearow repeatedly jabbed him with his beak. As Greg struggled to get up to his feet, the bird then moved on the attacking the unconscious Slowpoke. After numerous pecks and bruises, the boy and his bear managed to get into a full fledged sprint and ran for their lives from the grumpy old man and his equally insane Fearow. At last, they reached the door which the quickly opened slammed it, right in the bird pokemon's face.

"Fearow…"

Greg gave a proud grin to himself and his Slowpoke as they surveyed the clear imprint of a squashed bird on the door. Turning around, he heard Brian calling out to him; he was standing with Sunkern on his shoulder at the edge of the nearest bookcase, clearly waiting for Greg.

"Bought time, it took you long enough. I assume from all the screaming I heard that you must have gotten attacked _again_?" Brian asked with a small smile. Greg nodded solemnly and rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, it must be cause I'm so sexeh. Anyway, what are we gonna do now? Wanna go hit on those chicks over there? It would pretty nice if you got yourself a nice girlie for the journey since there is no way in hell you're going to get with Julie…"

"Keep it in your pants Greg! Nathan and Natalie went their own separate ways and now Julie is waiting for us in a couch back there. Let's go!" Brian hissed exasperatedly as he marched away with Sunkern on his shoulder. Greg scoffed at Brian's attitude and ran up toward him.

"Okay Brian, what's going on? In case you haven't noticed, you've been getting colder and colder toward me! We used to be the best of friends and now you're only friends with my sister while you guys treat me like some third wheel! Remember when we were partners in crime? What happened to that? Please tell me!" Greg snarled as he jumped in front of Brian and wouldn't let him forward. His red-haired friend gave a sigh of annoyance and rolled his eyes before snarling himself.

"I grew up Greg! I'm not some damn horny middle schooler like you still are! Yes, maybe I'm a little boring and a little sissy, but you know what? At least I'm not the laughing stock of the school, and I don't embarrass everyone around me by acting like some dorky five year old with a hormones of a sixteen year old!" Brian yelled, flushing crimson and causing people to look at him. Greg flushed as well and looked as if he wanted nothing better than to give Brian a nice punch in the face, but instead, just scoffed and marched on. The two walked forward silently, while Sunkern looked down at her trainer and one of his greatest friends, wondering why things between them were so turbulent.

They found Julie on a coach rummaging through her pack, looking intently for an item. It was then Brian finally realized he never looked at what his Mom packed for him, and horrible images of little frilly shirts and short shorts that went above his knees and worse of all, _tighty whities_ flooded his mind! Immediately throwing his hiker backpack sized pack onto the couch, he searched through it, content that she just chose random regular clothes from his drawers. Along with a few pairs of clothes, he also saw some pokemon medicines (fresh from the PokeCenter), a compass, small snacks, a few guide books, and most interestingly, a white box and envelope marked "To Brian."

"Heya Brian! I found it! I bought your uncle, Bruno's, guide for beginner battlers! I know I got all battling strategies and basics pretty much covered, but this has some more interesting facts and things that might be useful to us later on," Julie prattled as she picked up a hefty magazine sized book with a big grinning picture of Brian's most famous relative, Bruno, member of the Elite Four.

"Oh come on Julie. You know he didn't write it; a bunch of nerdy journalists who have never seen daylight put it together from the information in old, copyrighted guides and then just stuck a big picture of Bruno on it. Anyway, check this out!" He showed Julie and Greg the white envelope and package before tearing open the envelope, revealing a letter inside.

Dear Son,

It is none other than I, your father! Yes, we talked on the phone the night before you left, but I told Jolene to put this in your pack as a surprise! I repeat yet again that I am really sorry I couldn't make it to see you embark on your journey. I'm still in Hoenn helping out your cousin Brawly with his new gym in Lilycove, and I can't get a ship out of here for another couple of months because of that incident in Mt. Pyre… It was always my dream to see you replace your Uncle Chuck has fighting pokemon gym leader, but it's all right kiddo! In fact, I think there are way too many fighting pokemon trainers in our family. Well, enough of that, we went over that about a million times since you got that little Sunkern. I'm sure your Uncle Chuck and your dear mother (she was a very good trainer back in the day you know?) told you all that you need, so I'll end this letter short. You train that Sunkern good; if she doesn't win at least five badges, I promise I'll feed her to my Heracross! Also, in the attached package are fifteen specialized pokeballs. You better share them with Julie and Greg. I'll be in the Whirl Islands sometime for a little event. Good luck!

Sincerely,  
_Marcus Arganaut_

P.S.: Please remember my words of advice. Stay out of gangs, don't do drugs, and for the love of God, **DON'T GET A GIRL PREGNANT**!

"Emphasis on that last part Brian!" Greg snorted.

Brian gave a hearty chuckle at his father's humor. He sincerely missed him, but if the letter was correct, it wouldn't be too long before he saw him again. One of the big things about going to the Whirl Islands was **not** seeing his parents, but considering how he only saw his dad a few times in the past three years, it wouldn't be so terrible to see his father once more. Greg went to open the package that contained Pokeballs eagerly, but was stopped by his dear twin sister. After quickly shredding off the paper and opening the lid, Brian stared in astonishment at the ensemble of multicolored pokeballs.

"Holy crap! Your dad knows a good journey present! Look at all these! There's four normal balls, two great balls, four lure balls, two heavy balls, two love balls, and a friend ball!" Julie squealed as she grabbed one of the light blue lure balls. Greg and Brian gave her a blank look for spurting out that much information so quickly. "What? Greg and I went to Azalea Town last summer, that's where Kurt is!"

Brian smiled and put the package back into his pack, thanking his father under his breath for his generosity. The three got up and enjoyed the leisure of the boat for the next few hours from playing arcade games, to creaming everyone in Pool (which Greg and Brian were masters at), to talking to fellow classmates about what they would do in the journey. Halfway through, Julie parted ways with the guys to hang out with her fellow female friends, most prominently Melissa, the girl with the Shellder. Sunkern and Machop obediently followed their masters wherever they went and socialized with other pokemon, while poor Slowpoke still stood by the door to the Battle Room, completely forgotten by Greg and indifferently ignored by passerby. How he longed for tater tots…

"THE SHIP HAS NOW ARRIVED IN OLIVINE CITY PORT! PLEASE MAKE ROOM FOR THE NEW PASSANGERS!"

This announcement boomed throughout the entire ship and immediately caught the attention of the trio. Ten minutes later, they reunited along with Nathan and Natalie by the Battle Room door, finally catching sight of blissfully sleeping Slowpoke as well. Greg had managed to not hit on a single feminine shaped species for the entire break period and had loads of fun with Brian being slightly normal for once; besides the instance he started punching the ghosts on the Pacman screen of course.

"Yeah, we gotta finish up this little tourney before all those inlanders take up all the space!" Nathan stated. Everyone nodded, and then the two finalists gazed at each other briefly. "Good luck to you Julie! You're going to need it!" 

"Luck? Luck is for novices? Good luck to you though!" 

Nathan gave a wry smile as the five of them walked down to the Battle Room together. This time the Normal Battlefield was occupied, but the Grass Field was devoid of any annoying trainers and beckoned Tangela forward. Machop and Julie frowned; Tangela would have an advantage in the battle if the field was of her element. Sunkern also frowned at the grassy battlefield; she would have easily blended into the dying yellowish-green grasses that the whole field was rife with, but, alas, she lost. She wondered if her trainer was disappointed in her but was more worried at the possibility of Machop losing to the overgrown weed…

Brian, Greg, and Natalie sat in the edge of the battlefield's middle, eager to see Julie and Nathan dish it out. The actual combatants took their proper positions in the battlefield; Machop constantly ripping apart the skin of his legs which itched furiously upon contact with the tall grasses, and Tangela rolling around in the grass which had no effect on her whatsoever. The fighting pokemon growled at his opponent's physical taunting and decided to do a little name calling of his own.

_"Yo Weedy! Tell your Momma I left the twenty bucks on the kitchen counter!" _

_"And you tell your Momma she's the finest Gyarados I ever wrapped in my vines!"_ Tangela responded, grinning behind the vast cover of vines.

_"Where do you think I got my big muscles and power from?" _

_"And your dragon breath…" _

The two would have gone on even longer about each other's mothers (who are probably dead now, Mew rest their souls…), but unfortunately, their trainers began to issue commands.

"Alright Tangy! Let's finish this up quickly, so Julie doesn't have to suffer. Vine Whip it with all you got!" Nathan ordered lazily. He was rather overconfident to a win lying ahead.

"Stand there and use Focus Energy until I give further orders!" Julie retaliated with the air of a commander to a private.

Machop returned to his typical battle stance with his left palm raised and his right foot kept back, shutting his eyes tightly and started to focus all of his energy into the palm. A fiery scarlet and orange aura began to circle and rotate around his palm until it began to slowly seep inside of the glowing white hand. Meanwhile, Tangela had launched three of her turquoise vines forward, ready to bring down the stupid Machop who fantasized about her mother. A sweat drop slowly inched down Julie's left temple; would Machop's attack be able to complete quickly enough to deflect Tangela's vines?

"Karate Chop!" She shouted smoothly and briskly.

In a typical clichéd manner, Machop chopped the vines down with his palm just when their tips were about to strike his chest. For a moment, they dangled helplessly in midair as Machop still stood in his striking pose. The vine pokemon winced painfully as she struggled to pull back the bruised vines that now drooped on the floor, but Machop wasn't about to let her get off scotch free when he had the clear advantage. Snarling madly, he pounced on the clump of vines and clutched them tightly in his grip. Tangela ran back quickly, desperately trying to get her vines out of his deadly clutches.

"Tangela! Get your vines out of there right now! Send some other vines too!"

But Tangela was too anxious and busy trying to pull in his already armed vines to listen to or obey Nathan's order. Machop slowly got to his feet and, with an evil grin on his face, began to pull in the vines as if it were a game of Tug-of-War. He could barely see Tangela because of the thick grass, but it mattered not because he could tell where he was from the pull of his vines. Finally, Tangela gave up and stopped his effort, leaving him fatally open.

"Get her!" Julie declared savagely.

Extending his evil grin even more, Machop flicked his wrist upward, bringing the vines and vine pokemon upward with his hand. Tangela let out a tiny yelp as Machop pulled him high into the air by her vines in a perfect arc. Upon reaching the zenith of the toss, the grass pokemon fidgeted and shook violently, hoping somehow he would avoid the painful impact…

"TANGELA!"

Everyone groaned as Tangela painfully crashed onto Machop's other side. Not willing to let her off that easily, the fighting pokemon continued to throw her back and forth by her vines over his head, like a scene from a cartoon. While this continued, the pathetic losers watched from the sidelines, shifting their eyes left and right, following Tangela's impacts. Natalie bit her lip, worrying that her best friend might lose. On the other hand, Brian and Greg were smiling and cheering Machop and Julie on.

"Jeeze, that Tangela's easier than I thought! How bad are you Brian?" Greg commented as Tangela continued to smash into the ground.

"Not that bad. Just wait till Machop gets a whiff of Sleep Powder," Brian responded. Sunkern frowned at Greg from her trainer's shoulder.

"I don't think Julie or Machop realizes this, but Tangela is retreating her vines and is drawing herself closer to Machop each time he swings," Natalie pointed out. She was right; the intervals between Tangela's smashes were getting shorter, and her vines weren't as long as they were before. Jigglypuff, Sunkern, and Slowpoke also yelled their encouragements to the two fighters.

_"You can do it Tangela!"_ Jigglypuff shouted, leering at Machop dangerously.

_"Don't let my loss go in vain Machop! WHIP HER ASS!"_

_"TA-TER TOTS! TA-TER TOTS!"_

Julie finally noticed what Natalie was pointing out earlier, but Machop was getting too cocky and continued to lazily smash Tangela back and forth, ignorant to the evil grin that Tangela now wore. It was too late.

_"Oh shi..." _

The fighting pokemon finally caught sight of his enemy hanging only a few feet directly overhead, eyes closed tightly in concentration as a small cloud of green powder burst from her vines, engulfing Machop. Immediately, Machop released Tangela from his grip and started to cough and hack, covered his nose, and even ran around in circles, desperate not to fall asleep. But Tangela's attack proved to be too powerful as his running began to slow down and his hand slid off his nose. His eyes began to droop, despite his struggles to keep them open.

_"That's what your mother looked liked last night!" _Tangela snidely commented, panting and heaving as she eyed a spread-eagled, knocked out Machop sprawled face down on the floor. She knew she only had a limited amount of time before the powder wore off and her opponent would be at large again. Though her entire body ached incredibly and her vines felt like they could easily just fall off, she had to attack!

Tangela, unable to use her vines, rammed her entire body into Machop several times, groaning each time. Still heaving and panting, her entire body was drenched with a thin green liquid which was perceived by the others to be plant sweat. As she continued to attack, she began to wince more and more painfully while Machop barely even shifted from his spot!

"Wait a sec, is that a Struggle attack?" Brian asked.

"What's that?" Greg asked.

"Struggle is a move pokemon use when they can't use any other moves. Tangela's vines were severely hurt in my Machop's last attack, and she can't use them anymore. Also, there's no point in using Sleep Powder, so she has to use Struggle! It's not very strong, but takes stamina out of the pokemon using it too!" Julie yelled. Even though she tried hiding the fact she was smart, she loved being a walking fountain of information as well. 

"Tangela! Don't worry. It's okay; you don't have to keep hurting yourself!" Nathan pleaded with his pokemon. Tangela shook her blue head and rammed into Machop one more time before finally collapsing. Machop finally began to stir and woke up. He rubbed his eyes and sore side, noting Tangela laying facing down on the hard floor. He flipped her over to see swirls replacing her eyes. He won.

Brian and Greg immediately got to their feet and chest banged each other, whooping and cheering for Julie's victory while Natalie rolled her eyes and walked over to Nathan with her baby face "Sowwy" look.

"I guess you won Julie…" Nathan mumbled. He failed to avoid everyone's gazes and instead let the whole room see his watering crystal-colored eyes and quivering lips. 

He began to turn away, and everyone around him heard small sobs and cries while his hands began to wipe something away from his cheeks. Brian's look of victory faded away into concern, while Greg's smile just turned brighter and larger.

"Oh, wittle Surfer Thug going to cry now?" Greg mocked in a babyish voice. Natalie flicked him off.

Julie began staring at her feet and walked up to Nathan, whose sobbing became steadily louder and louder. "I am so sorry Nathan. I shouldn't have let Machop be so rough…" Julie said quietly.

Nathan's sobs became extremely audible, reaching the point of huge bawling, and other people in the Battle Room turned to look. Kids in Johto weren't really taught to mind their own business unfortunately. Then, his sobs began to change sounds. He was completely hysterical. _Laughing _hysterically. He turned to face them and began to really cry guffawing. "Oh man, you guys actually believed that? So I have one loss, big deal! I bet that's what Julie would have done, big lot of cry babies… Gosh, you people are so gullible," Nathan cackled, holding his stomach as he continued to laugh hysterically.

The looks of pity around him changed into looks of disgust and annoyance, though Greg looked rather disappointed. Natalie walked up with her black eyes narrowed in disgust and began to slap her best friend silly.

"Don't you ever do that again! You made us all look like fools!" Natalie screamed over his yelps of pain.

Nathan ran out the door with his best friend chasing after him. Jigglypuff walked up to Tangela, who was still laying face up and began to poke her. Tangela shook her body, refusing to get up out of misery for her loss, until Jigglypuff put the microphone to her mouth. Only then did Tangela jump on her feet and ran to the door.

"So, kill time?" Brian asked the twins. They nodded and called their pokemon back.

The battles were at last over, and it was determined Julie and Machop were the best of them all as of this point. During the final battle, the five trainers failed to notice the grumpy old sailor who was standing next to the crack Slowpoke's Water Gun made on the wall. His Fearow was perched limply on his right shoulder, beak bandaged and gauzed meticulously from the little smashing into the door incident. Tracing his pudgy finger along the crack of the wall, he began to laugh hoarsely before pulling out a small grey remote control, with a single, foreboding red button right in the center. Gently rubbing the button with his finger now, he looked around, making sure no sailors were around.

_"Only a matter of time…"_


End file.
